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Wei GY, Zhao M, Sperling EA, Gaines RR, Kalderon-Asael B, Shen J, Li C, Zhang F, Li G, Zhou C, Cai C, Chen D, Xiao KQ, Jiang L, Ling HF, Planavsky NJ, Tarhan LG. Lithium isotopic constraints on the evolution of continental clay mineral factory and marine oxygenation in the earliest Paleozoic Era. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2024; 10:eadk2152. [PMID: 38552018 PMCID: PMC10980266 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adk2152] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/08/2023] [Accepted: 02/26/2024] [Indexed: 04/01/2024]
Abstract
The evolution of oxygen cycles on Earth's surface has been regulated by the balance between molecular oxygen production and consumption. The Neoproterozoic-Paleozoic transition likely marks the second rise in atmospheric and oceanic oxygen levels, widely attributed to enhanced burial of organic carbon. However, it remains disputed how marine organic carbon production and burial respond to global environmental changes and whether these feedbacks trigger global oxygenation during this interval. Here, we report a large lithium isotopic and elemental dataset from marine mudstones spanning the upper Neoproterozoic to middle Cambrian [~660 million years ago (Ma) to 500 Ma]. These data indicate a dramatic increase in continental clay formation after ~525 Ma, likely linked to secular changes in global climate and compositions of the continental crust. Using a global biogeochemical model, we suggest that intensified continental weathering and clay delivery to the oceans could have notably increased the burial efficiency of organic carbon and facilitated greater oxygen accumulation in the earliest Paleozoic oceans.
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Affiliation(s)
- Guang-Yi Wei
- School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, and Frontiers Science Center for Critical Earth Material Cycling, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
- Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8109, USA
| | - Mingyu Zhao
- Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8109, USA
- Key Laboratory of Cenozoic Geology and Environment, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Erik A. Sperling
- Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | | | - Boriana Kalderon-Asael
- Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8109, USA
| | - Jun Shen
- State Key Laboratory of Geological Processes and Mineral Resources, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
| | - Chao Li
- State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation and Institute of Sedimentary Geology, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China
- Key Laboratory of Deep-time Geography and Environment Reconstruction and Applications of Ministry of Natural Resources, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China
- International Center for Sedimentary Geochemistry and Biogeochemistry Research, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China
| | - Feifei Zhang
- School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, and Frontiers Science Center for Critical Earth Material Cycling, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
| | - Gaojun Li
- School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, and Frontiers Science Center for Critical Earth Material Cycling, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
| | - Chuanming Zhou
- State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, and Center for Excellence in Life and Palaeoenvironment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China
| | - Chunfang Cai
- Key Laboratory of Cenozoic Geology and Environment, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Daizhao Chen
- Key Laboratory of Cenozoic Geology and Environment, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Ke-Qing Xiao
- State Key Lab of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shuangqing Rd. 18, 10085, Beijing, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
| | - Lei Jiang
- Key Laboratory of Cenozoic Geology and Environment, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Hong-Fei Ling
- School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, and Frontiers Science Center for Critical Earth Material Cycling, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
| | - Noah J. Planavsky
- Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8109, USA
| | - Lidya G. Tarhan
- Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8109, USA
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2
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Isson T, Rauzi S. Oxygen isotope ensemble reveals Earth's seawater, temperature, and carbon cycle history. Science 2024; 383:666-670. [PMID: 38330122 DOI: 10.1126/science.adg1366] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/04/2022] [Accepted: 01/05/2024] [Indexed: 02/10/2024]
Abstract
Earth's persistent habitability since the Archean remains poorly understood. Using an oxygen isotope ensemble approach-comprising shale, iron oxide, carbonate, silica, and phosphate records-we reconcile a multibillion-year history of seawater δ18O, temperature, and marine and terrestrial clay abundance. Our results reveal a rise in seawater δ18O and a temperate Proterozoic climate distinct to interpretations of a hot early Earth, indicating a strongly buffered climate system. Precambrian sediments are enriched in marine authigenic clay, with prominent reductions occurring in concert with Paleozoic and Cenozoic cooling, the expansion of siliceous life, and the radiation of land plants. These findings support the notion that shifts in the locus and extent of clay formation contributed to seawater 18O enrichment, clement early Earth conditions, major climate transitions, and climate stability through the reverse weathering feedback.
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Affiliation(s)
- Terry Isson
- Te Aka Mātuatua, University of Waikato (Tauranga), Bay of Plenty, Tauranga, New Zealand
| | - Sofia Rauzi
- Te Aka Mātuatua, University of Waikato (Tauranga), Bay of Plenty, Tauranga, New Zealand
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Buatois LA, Davies NS, Gibling MR, Krapovickas V, Labandeira CC, MacNaughton RB, Mángano MG, Minter NJ, Shillito AP. The Invasion of the Land in Deep Time: Integrating Paleozoic Records of Paleobiology, Ichnology, Sedimentology, and Geomorphology. Integr Comp Biol 2022; 62:297-331. [PMID: 35640908 DOI: 10.1093/icb/icac059] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2022] [Revised: 04/19/2022] [Accepted: 05/24/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The invasion of the land was a complex, protracted process, punctuated by mass extinctions, that involved multiple routes from marine environments. We integrate paleobiology, ichnology, sedimentology, and geomorphology to reconstruct Paleozoic terrestrialization. Cambrian landscapes were dominated by laterally mobile rivers with unstable banks in the absence of significant vegetation. Temporary incursions by arthropods and worm-like organisms into coastal environments apparently did not result in establishment of continental communities. Contemporaneous lacustrine faunas may have been inhibited by limited nutrient delivery and high sediment loads. The Ordovician appearance of early land plants triggered a shift in the primary locus of the global clay mineral factory, increasing the amount of mudrock on the continents. The Silurian-Devonian rise of vascular land plants, including the first forests and extensive root systems, was instrumental in further retaining fine sediment on alluvial plains. These innovations led to increased architectural complexity of braided and meandering rivers. Landscape changes were synchronous with establishment of freshwater and terrestrial arthropod faunas in overbank areas, abandoned fluvial channels, lake margins, ephemeral lakes, and inland deserts. Silurian-Devonian lakes experienced improved nutrient availability, due to increased phosphate weathering and terrestrial humic matter. All these changes favoured frequent invasions to permament establishment of jawless and jawed fishes in freshwater habitats and the subsequent tetrapod colonization of the land. The Carboniferous saw rapid diversification of tetrapods, mostly linked to aquatic reproduction, and land plants, including gymnosperms. Deeper root systems promoted further riverbank stabilization, contributing to the rise of anabranching rivers and braided systems with vegetated islands. New lineages of aquatic insects developed and expanded novel feeding modes, including herbivory. Late Paleozoic soils commonly contain pervasive root and millipede traces. Lacustrine animal communities diversified, accompanied by increased food-web complexity and improved food delivery which may have favored permanent colonization of offshore and deep-water lake environments. These trends continued in the Permian, but progressive aridification favored formation of hypersaline lakes, which were stressful for colonization. The Capitanian and end-Permian extinctions affected lacustrine and fluvial biotas, particularly the invertebrate infauna, although burrowing may have allowed some tetrapods to survive associated global warming and increased aridification.
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Affiliation(s)
- Luis A Buatois
- Department of Geological Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5E2, Canada
| | - Neil S Davies
- Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB2 3EQ, UK
| | - Martin R Gibling
- Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4R2, Canada
| | - Verónica Krapovickas
- Departamento de Ciencias Geológicas, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Intendente Güiraldes 2160, Ciudad Universitaria, C1428EGA, Argentina
| | - Conrad C Labandeira
- Department of Paleobiology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC 20013-7012, USA.,Department of Entomology and BEES Program, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 21740, USA.,College of Life Sciences, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100048, China
| | - Robert B MacNaughton
- Geological Survey of Canada (Calgary), Natural Resources Canada, Calgary, Alberta T2L 2A7, Canada
| | - M Gabriela Mángano
- Department of Geological Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5E2, Canada
| | - Nicholas J Minter
- School of the Environment, Geography, and Geosciences, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO1 3QL, UK
| | - Anthony P Shillito
- Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, UK
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4
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Cockell CS. Are microorganisms everywhere they can be? Environ Microbiol 2021; 23:6355-6363. [PMID: 34693610 DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.15825] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/15/2021] [Accepted: 10/15/2021] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Baas-Becking is famously attributed with the conjecture that 'everything is everywhere, but the environment selects'. Although this aphorism is largely challenged by microbial biogeographical data, even weak versions of the claim leave unanswered the question about whether all environments that could theoretically support life contain life. In the last decade, the discovery of thermally sterilized habitable environments disconnected from inhabited regions, and habitats within organisms such as the sterile, but habitable human fetal gut, suggest the existence of a diversity of macroscopic habitable environments apparently devoid of actively metabolizing or reproducing life. Less clear is the status of such environments at the micron scale, for example, between colonies of organisms within rock interstices or on and within other substrates. I discuss recent evidence for these types of environments. These environments have practical uses in: (i) being negative controls for understanding the role of microbial processes in geochemical cycles and geological processes, (ii) yielding insights into the extent to which the biosphere extends into all spaces it theoretically can, (iii) suggesting caution in interpreting the results of life detection instrumentation, and (iv) being useful for establishing the conditions for the origin of life and its prevalence on other planetary bodies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Charles S Cockell
- UK Centre for Astrobiology, School of Physics and Astronomy, James Clerk Maxwell Building, The King's Buildings, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
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5
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Kalderon-Asael B, Katchinoff JAR, Planavsky NJ, Hood AVS, Dellinger M, Bellefroid EJ, Jones DS, Hofmann A, Ossa FO, Macdonald FA, Wang C, Isson TT, Murphy JG, Higgins JA, West AJ, Wallace MW, Asael D, Pogge von Strandmann PAE. A lithium-isotope perspective on the evolution of carbon and silicon cycles. Nature 2021; 595:394-398. [PMID: 34262211 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03612-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2019] [Accepted: 05/04/2021] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Abstract
The evolution of the global carbon and silicon cycles is thought to have contributed to the long-term stability of Earth's climate1-3. Many questions remain, however, regarding the feedback mechanisms at play, and there are limited quantitative constraints on the sources and sinks of these elements in Earth's surface environments4-12. Here we argue that the lithium-isotope record can be used to track the processes controlling the long-term carbon and silicon cycles. By analysing more than 600 shallow-water marine carbonate samples from more than 100 stratigraphic units, we construct a new carbonate-based lithium-isotope record spanning the past 3 billion years. The data suggest an increase in the carbonate lithium-isotope values over time, which we propose was driven by long-term changes in the lithium-isotopic conditions of sea water, rather than by changes in the sedimentary alterations of older samples. Using a mass-balance modelling approach, we propose that the observed trend in lithium-isotope values reflects a transition from Precambrian carbon and silicon cycles to those characteristic of the modern. We speculate that this transition was linked to a gradual shift to a biologically controlled marine silicon cycle and the evolutionary radiation of land plants13,14.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Noah J Planavsky
- Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
| | - Ashleigh V S Hood
- The University of Melbourne, School of Earth Sciences, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
| | | | | | - David S Jones
- Amherst College Geology Department, Amherst, MA, USA
| | - Axel Hofmann
- Department of Geology, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
| | - Frantz Ossa Ossa
- Department of Geology, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa.,Department of Geosciences, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany
| | - Francis A Macdonald
- Department of Earth Sciences, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
| | - Chunjiang Wang
- China University of Petroleum, College of Geosciences, Beijing, China
| | - Terry T Isson
- Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.,Te Aka Mātuatua, University of Waikato, Tauranga, New Zealand
| | - Jack G Murphy
- Department of Geoscience, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - John A Higgins
- Department of Geoscience, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - A Joshua West
- Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Malcolm W Wallace
- The University of Melbourne, School of Earth Sciences, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
| | - Dan Asael
- Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
| | - Philip A E Pogge von Strandmann
- London Geochemistry and Isotope Centre (LOGIC), Institute of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University College London and Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK. .,Institute of Geosciences, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany.
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Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) study of redox conditions in sandstones: Impact on wettability modification and mineral morphology. Colloids Surf A Physicochem Eng Asp 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.colsurfa.2020.124765] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
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7
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Thermodynamic and Energetic Limits on Continental Silicate Weathering Strongly Impact the Climate and Habitability of Wet, Rocky Worlds. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2020. [DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab9362] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
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