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Pervasive oxygenation along late Archaean ocean margins

Abstract

The photosynthetic production of oxygen in the oceans is thought to have begun by 2.7 billion years ago, several hundred million years before appreciable accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere. However, the abundance and distribution of dissolved oxygen in the late Archaean oceans is poorly constrained. Here we present geochemical profiles from 2.6- to 2.5-billion-year-old black shales from the Campbellrand–Malmani carbonate platform in South Africa. We find a high abundance of rhenium and a low abundance of molybdenum, which, together with the speciation of sedimentary iron, points to the presence of dissolved oxygen in the bottom waters on the platform slope. The water depth on the slope probably reached several hundred metres, implying the export of O2 below the photic zone. Our data also indicate that the mildly oxygenated surface ocean gave way to an anoxic deep ocean. We therefore suggest that the production of oxygen in the surface ocean was vigorous at this time, but was not sufficient to fully consume the deep-sea reductants. On the basis of our results and observations from the Hamersley basin in Western Australia, we conclude that the productive regions along ocean margins during the late Archaean eon were sites of substantial O2 accumulation, at least 100 million years before the first significant increase in atmospheric O2 concentration.

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Figure 1: Geological map and cross-section of the Campbellrand–Malmani carbonate platform margin.
Figure 2: Geochemical profiles through core GKP01.
Figure 3: Geochemical profiles through core GKF01.
Figure 4: Late Archaean ocean redox conditions along the Campbellrand–Malmani ocean margin.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Kirschvink, J. Grotzinger, A. Knoll and the Agouron Institute for spearheading and funding the Agouron drilling project. This study was financially supported by the NASA Exobiology Program and the NASA Astrobiology Institute. B.K. was financially supported by an Agouron Institute Geobiology Fellowship. The NSF (Geobiology and Low Temperature Geochemistry and Sedimentary Geology and Paleontology programs) supported analytical work at the University of Maryland. The DFG supported measurements by A.J.K. at the University of Maryland while on sabbatical. S.W.P. acknowledges support from a NERC Research Fellowship. T. Algeo provided valuable insights that improved the manuscript. G. Arnold and D. Sumner are thanked for discussions. J. Kirschvink is thanked for access to samples. G. Arnold, I. Hilburn and T. Raub assisted with sample collection and preparation. G. Gordon provided analytical support.

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The research was planned by B.K., A.D.A., T.W.L. and A.J.K. Analytical protocols and data processing were carried out by B.K., C.T.R., A.J.K. and S.W.P. Manuscript preparation was spearheaded by B.K. with important contributions from all co-authors.

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Correspondence to Brian Kendall.

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Kendall, B., Reinhard, C., Lyons, T. et al. Pervasive oxygenation along late Archaean ocean margins. Nature Geosci 3, 647–652 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo942

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