Azolla event

English

Proper noun

the Azolla event

1. A hypothesized palaeoclimatology event in the middle Eocene (49 million years ago), where large blooms of mosquito fern (azolla) caused mass-scale carbon sequestration which lead to the Late Cenozoic Ice Age and glaciation of the Antarctic.
   • 2011, Colin Tudge, The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor‎, Hachette, →ISBN:

     Although at first it seems incredible, this mechanism alone—known as the Azolla Event—may have been enough to account for the rapid cooling that brought the Eocene to an end. There is enough carbon locked in the pickled tissues of Azolla at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean to have reduced the CO₂ content of the whole atmosphere—enough to put a stop to the greenhouse world that had prevailed through the millions of years of the Eocene.

Further reading

• Azolla event on Wikipedia.Wikipedia