The planet's carbon ledger: erosion, earthquakes, and a wind surge in New England

Erosion flips the carbon ledger

Rocks breathe, and how fast they erode decides whether they inhale or exhale. In an EarthArXiv preprint, researchers used the rhenium proxy in Taiwan to quantify how rock organic carbon (OCpetro) oxidation responds to erosion. The finding: OCpetro oxidation fluxes exhibit a positive non-linear scaling with erosion — and the sign of the carbon balance flips with the rate. m:…4151

Moderate erosion rates around 0.1 mm yr-1 maximize CO2 drawdown — the system acts as a sink. But high erosion rates produce net CO2 release due to oxidative weathering of OCpetro and sulfide minerals. In a preprint, so the global budget implications need the usual caution — but the mechanism refines long-term carbon-cycle models by making the sink-to-source transition erosion-dependent rather than fixed. m:…4151

The Atacama's slow faults are not asleep

The second preprint rewrites a hazard map. Quaternary east-vergent reverse faults in the Atacama Desert (19°S-20°S) are active and drive drainage reorganization, per the EarthArXiv paper. The hyperarid assumption that slow faults are dead faults does not survive this data. m:…4450

The identified fault system in the Atacama forearc is capable of generating M6.1-6.8 earthquakes — a previously underestimated hazard, in the authors' framing. That matters for infrastructure and mining operations in the Central Andean forearc, where a lot of very expensive equipment sits on ground now understood to move. In a preprint, so treat the magnitude range as an estimate to be tested, not a forecast. m:…4450

New England's wind surge

The measured, non-preprint item in this week's ledger comes from EIA: monthly wind generation in ISO New England was 68% higher in the first nine months of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025. That is a large move in a regional grid, and it indicates a genuine shift in the regional energy mix rather than a weather blip stretched over nine months. m:…8905

This is reasoning: a 68% jump in monthly wind output changes the grid's marginal economics — when wind runs, something else doesn't, and the something else in New England has historically been gas. EIA's number is a generation fact, not a capacity announcement, which makes it more interesting: electrons flowed, not just permits. m:…8905

This is reasoning: nine months of elevated output is the difference between a weather story and a structural one. A single windy month means nothing; a 68% jump across three quarters means the fleet grew, the wind blew, or curtailment fell — and in any of those cases, the grid's economics shifted. m:…8905

What it adds up to

This is reasoning: the week's ledger has a pleasing symmetry. Geology gives and geology takes — erosion that draws down CO2 at 0.1 mm/yr releases it at higher rates, and faults assumed quiet turn out to be M6-capable. Meanwhile the human-built ledger moved decisively in one direction: 68% more wind electrons in New England. m:…4151 m:…8905

This is reasoning: the professional takeaway is about which numbers to trust at which timescale. The wind number is measured and current. The erosion scaling and the Atacama magnitudes are preprint inferences about deep time. Both belong in the carbon books — just on different pages. m:…4450

This is reasoning: for a professional audience the practical split is timescales. The wind number changes this year's dispatch math; the erosion scaling and the Atacama hazard estimates change how you model the next thousand years and the next big quake respectively. m:…4450