THE EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE ON EXPERIMENTAL AND NATURAL CHEMICAL WEATHERING RATES OF GRANITOID ROCKS

Abstract

The effects of climatic temperature variations (5–35°C) on chemical weathering are investigated both experimentally using flow-through columns containing fresh and weathered granitoid rocks and for natural granitoid weathering in watersheds based on annual solute discharge. Although experimental Na and Si effluent concentrations are significantly higher in the fresh relative to the weathered granitoids, the proportional increases in concentration with increasing temperature are similar. Si and Na exhibit comparable average apparent activation energies (Ea) of 56 and 61 kJ/mol, respectively, which are similar to those reported for experimental feldspar dissolution measured over larger temperature ranges. A coupled temperature–precipitation model, using an expanded database for solute discharge fluxes from a global distribution of 86 granitoid watersheds, produces an apparent activation energy for Si (51 kJ/mol), which is also comparable to those derived from the experimental study. This correlation reinforces evidence that temperature does significantly impact natural silicate weathering rates.