Department of Geosciences

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Browsing Department of Geosciences by Subject "14 Life Below Water"

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    Proterozoic ocean redox and biogeochemical stasis
    Reinhard, Christopher T.; Planavsky, Noah J.; Robbins, Leslie J.; Partin, Camille A.; Gill, Benjamin C.; Lalonde, Stefan V.; Bekker, Andrey; Konhauser, Kurt O.; Lyons, Timothy W. (National Academy of Sciences, 2013)
    The partial pressure of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere has increased dramatically through time, and this increase is thought to have occurred in two rapid steps at both ends of the Proterozoic Eon (~2.5-0.543 Ga). However, the trajectory and mechanisms of Earth's oxygenation are still poorly constrained, and little is known regarding attendant changes in ocean ventilation and seafloor redox.We have a particularly poor understanding of ocean chemistry during the mid-Proterozoic (~1.8-0.8 Ga). Given the coupling between redoxsensitive trace element cycles and planktonic productivity, various models for mid-Proterozoic ocean chemistry imply different effects on the biogeochemical cycling of major and trace nutrients, with potential ecological constraints on emerging eukaryotic life. Here, we exploit the differing redox behavior of molybdenum and chromium to provide constraints on seafloor redox evolution by coupling a large database of sedimentary metal enrichments to a mass balance model that includes spatially variant metal burial rates.We find that the metal enrichment record implies a Proterozoic deep ocean characterized by pervasive anoxia relative to the Phanerozoic (at least ~30-40% of modern seafloor area) but a relatively small extent of euxinic (anoxic and sulfidic) seafloor (less than ~1-10% of modern seafloor area). Our model suggests that the oceanicMo reservoir is extremely sensitive to perturbations in the extent of sulfidic seafloor and that the record of Mo and chromium enrichments through time is consistent with the possibility of a Mo-N colimited marine biosphere during many periods of Earth's history.
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    Pulse of atmospheric oxygen during the late Cambrian
    Saltzman, Matthew R.; Young, Seth A.; Kump, Lee R.; Gill, Benjamin C.; Lyons, Timothy W.; Runnegar, Bruce (National Academy of Sciences, 2011)
    A rise in atmospheric O2 has been linked to the Cambrian explosion of life. For the plankton and animal radiation that began some 40 million yr later and continued through much of the Ordovician (Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event), the search for an environmental trigger(s) has remained elusive. Here we present a carbon and sulfur isotope mass balance model for the latest Cambrian time interval spanning the globally recognized Steptoean Positive Carbon Isotope Excursion (SPICE) that indicates a major increase in atmospheric O2. We estimate that this organic carbon and pyrite burial event added approximately 19 x 1018 moles of O 2 to the atmosphere (i.e., equal to change from an initial starting point for O2 between 10-18% to a peak of 20-28% O2) beginning at approximately 500 million years. We further report on new paired carbon isotope results from carbonate and organic matter through the SPICE in North America, Australia, and China that reveal an approximately 2‰ increase in biological fractionation, also consistent with a major increase in atmospheric O2. The SPICE is followed by an increase in plankton diversity that may relate to changes in macro- and micronutrient abundances in increasingly oxic marine environments, representing a critical initial step in the trophic chain. Ecologically diverse plankton groups could provide new food sources for an animal biota expanding into progressively more ventilated marine habitats during the Ordovician, ultimately establishing complex ecosystems that are a hallmark of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event.
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    Sulfur isotopes track the global extent and dynamics of euxinia during Cretaceous Oceanic Anoxic Event 2
    Owens, Jeremy D.; Gill, Benjamin C.; Jenkyns, Hugh C.; Bates, Steven M.; Severmann, Silke; Kuypers, Marcel M. M.; Woodfine, Richard G.; Lyons, Timothy W. (National Academy of Sciences, 2013)
    The Mesozoic Era is characterized by numerous oceanic anoxic events (OAEs) that are diagnostically expressed by widespread marine organic-carbon burial and coeval carbon-isotope excursions. Here we present coupled high-resolution carbon- and sulfurisotope data from four European OAE 2 sections spanning the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary that show roughly parallel positive excursions. Significantly, however, the interval of peak magnitude for carbon isotopes precedes that of sulfur isotopes with an estimated offset of a few hundred thousand years. Based on geochemical box modeling of organic-carbon and pyrite burial, the sulfur-isotope excursion can be generated by transiently increasing the marine burial rate of pyrite precipitated under euxinic (i.e., anoxic and sulfidic) water-column conditions. To replicate the observed isotopic offset, the model requires that enhanced levels of organic-carbon and pyrite burial continued a few hundred thousand years after peak organic-carbon burial, but that their isotope records responded differently due to dramatically different residence times for dissolved inorganic carbon and sulfate in seawater. The significant inference is that euxinia persisted post-OAE, but with its global extent dwindling over this time period. The model further suggests that only ∼5% of the global seafloor area was overlain by euxinic bottom waters during OAE 2. Although this figure is ∼30x greater than the small euxinic fraction present today (∼0.15%), the result challenges previous suggestions that one of the best-documented OAEs was defined by globally pervasive euxinic deep waters. Our results place important controls instead on local conditions and point to the difficulty in sustaining whole-ocean euxinia.