1 NEW INSIGHTS ON RIFT BASIN DEVELOPMENT AND THE GEOLOGICAL CARBON CYCLE, MASS EXTINCTION, AND CARBON SEQUESTRATION FROM OUTCROPS, AND NEW CORE, DRILL HOLES AND SEISMIC LINES FROM THE NORTHERN NEWARK BASIN (NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY) PAUL E. OLSEN, SEAN T. KINNEY, NATALIA V. ZAKHAROVA Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10968 ROY W. SCHLISCHE, MARTHA O. WITHJACK Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854 DENNIS V. KENT Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854 and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10968 DAVID S. GOLDBERG Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10968 BRIAN E. SLATER New York State Museum, Albany, NY 12230. INTRODUCTION The Carbon Cycle, Global Environments, and the Sedimentary Record It is a viable theory that in the big picture, much of Earth’s geological record of is, in one way or another, a reflection of changes in the carbon cycle, itself uniquely (as far as we know in THIS solar system) and profoundly a reflection of life. Plausibly, because of the interplay between photosynthesis, weathering, CO 2 , radiative balance, and the thermal gradient of the crust and mantle, the Earth is the only body around our Sun with granite and plate tectonics (Sleep, 2012) and the only body with an atmosphere with significant O 2 (Sleep, 2012). This field trip will view the Newark Basin (Fig. 1) and its sedimentary and biotic record though this lens of the carbon cycle. The fact that there is a Newark rift valley at all and that it is filled with largely red beds reflects this profound difference of our planet compared to our companions. Even the packaging of the Newark Basin sedimentary sequence, which is so profoundly cyclical and clearly paced by variations in the Earth’s orbit, seemingly entirely extrinsic to the intrinsic Earth system, must reflect a very strong, nonlinear amplification by feedbacks between the carbon cycle and climate. Finally, the end-Triassic mass extinction (ETE) appears to be an example of a carbon cycle perturbation caused by tectonics – the eruption of the giant Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) pumping CO 2 and SO 2 into the atmosphere. These same rocks may be part of our effort to sequester anthropogenic CO 2 , itself a product of combustion of a half a billion years of photosynthetic natural carbon sequestration. The fact that the eruptions could occur at all may be a function of the same thermal gradient reflecting the radiative balance that makes our planet hospitable. Much of the theory of the Earth as it relates to life and the carbon cycle is on the fringe of knowledge, but it is useful to ponder how these things might work in order to frame testable hypotheses that may not only help us