The Miocene–Pliocene transition: emergence of the modern carbon cycle (2021-2025)

Principal Investigator: Baptiste Suchéras-Marx
Participants: Luc Beaufort, Clara Bolton, Sandrine Conrod, Yannick Donnadieu, Yves Gally, Jean-Charles Mazur, Quentin Pillot

The objective of the MioCarb project is to study a remarkable event called Biogenic Bloom and to understand its origin and impact on the carbon cycle. The Biogenic Bloom event is marked by a strong increase in planktonic primary productivity. During this event, the high productivity had an impact on the carbon cycle. However, a decrease in pCO2 is observed in the same time interval as the Biogenic Bloom. However, the causal links between these two events have not been established. To do so, it is necessary to quantify primary productivity at high temporal resolution, on a large geographical scale and to apply a climate modelling approach.