Sedimentary Provenance and Climate Change Through Earth History

Sedimentary provenance, the study of the original source area, history, and journey of sediments, decodes the compositional, mineralogical, and geochronological signatures preserved in sedimentary rocks. By analyzing these rock fingerprints, provenance studies reconstruct paleogeography, tectonic regimes, and paleoclimate. Inversely, major climate shifts in Earth's history changed how clastic material formed and traveled from its source to the depositional basin. Analyzing ancient case studies gives us insights to predict future climate changes. Sedimentary provenance can fingerprint changes in weathering, erosion, and sediment routing during hotter or colder periods in Earth's history.

This Research Topic aims to connect sedimentary provenance directly to climate change. It explores weathering rates, CO2 drawdown, the interplay between orogenesis, erosion and rainfall, icehouse and greenhouse periods, and ocean temperatures.

We invite researchers to submit original research articles, review papers, and methodological studies addressing themes related to sedimentary provenance and climate change. Potential topics include:

• Uses of heavy minerals, fine-grained detritus geochemistry, or isotope systems to understand weathering and erosion across climate transitions.
• Innovative methodologies, such as machine learning, to separate climate signals from tectonic or other signals.
• Paleoclimate modeling linked to sedimentary provenance data that test weathering (e.g., chemical weathering indices).
• Glacial-interglacial sedimentary provenance changes.
• Detrital thermochronology to tie exhumation rates and tectonics to climate changes.

Who should submit: Scientists from disciplines including geology, climate and environmental sciences, geochemistry, and oceanography, among others. Together, we can read climate changes through Earth's history grain by grain.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Sedimentary provenance, paleoclimate, weathering, erosion, geochronology, heavy minerals, detrital thermochronology, sediment routing, tectonics, CO2 drawdown

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.