Central Indian Ocean Basin micrometeorite collections: Type, flux, etching and its implication to ocean biogeochemistry

Abstract

Extraterrestrial phenomena have influenced Earth's processes throughout geological history. Evaluating the impact of extraterrestrial material on the environment is crucial for understanding the evolution of Earth and life. This study incorporates the investigation of micrometeorites (MMs), abundant cosmic materials on Earth, to understand their influence on the chemical composition and biogeochemistry of the ocean. Comprehensive etching and flux analyses reveal that ~95% of cosmic spherules (CSs) entering seawater are etched or wholly dissolved, supplying nutrients to phytoplankton. Barred spherules show the highest degree of etching (~19%), followed by porphyritic (~17%), glass (~15%), cryptocrystalline (~12%), scoriaceous (~10%), G-type (~9%), and I-type (~6%). Annually, ~3080 tonnes (t) of olivine from MMs dissolve into seawater, contributing ~495 t of Mg²⁺, ~1110 t of Fe²⁺, and ~1928 t of silicic acid. This signifies that over the Indian Ocean's ~40 Myr history, ~23 Gt of olivine from CSs has dissolved, providing nutrients to seawater and sequestering ~7 Gt of CO₂. The world ocean during this time has sequestered ~35 Gt of CO₂, with fluctuations influenced by extraterrestrial activity. For instance, the Veritas event, lasting ~1.5 Myr, sequestered ~6 Gt of CO₂ from the atmosphere. A robust flux calculation based on ~2 t of deep-sea sediments from 3610 MMs provides a more accurate estimate of the time-averaged flux of ~229 t yr^-1. These comprehensive analyses reveal MM's original characteristics, post-deposition processes, geological record and their overall impact on Earth's marine environments, thereby contributing to our knowledge of the interconnection between terrestrial and extraterrestrial processes.

Keywords

Cosmic spherules / Micrometeorites / Deep-sea / Etching / Central Indian Ocean Basin / Flux

Data availability

Data are available in Supplementary Data (A1, A2, A3 and A4).

CRediT authorship contribution statement

N.G. Rudraswami: Writing - original draft, Methodology, Pro-ject administration, Conceptualization. V.P. Singh: Writing - orig-inal draft, Investigation, Conceptualization. K.T. Basil Saleem: Writing - original draft, Investigation, Conceptualization.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This work is dedicated to the late Dr. M. Shyam Prasad, in recognition of his pioneering contribution to the field and his foundational efforts in the collection of micrometeorites from the Central Indian Ocean Basin. ISRO-RESPOND GAP3332 and PMN-MOES GAP2175 Project support this work. NIO-PMN and MOES-NCPOR supported the deep-sea and Antarctica micromete-orite collections, respectively. This is NIO's contribution No. 7429.

Appendix A. Supplementary material

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gsf.2025.102078.

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