Abstract
The evolution of land plants during the Palaeozoic era transformed Earth’s biosphere. Because the Earth’s surface and interior are linked by tectonic processes, the linked evolution of the biosphere and sedimentary rocks should be recorded as a near-contemporary shift in the composition of the continental crust. To test this hypothesis, we assessed the isotopic signatures of zircon formed at subduction zones where marine sediments are transported into the mantle, thereby recording interactions between surface environments and the deep Earth. Using oxygen and lutetium–hafnium isotopes of magmatic zircon that respectively track surface weathering (time independent) and radiogenic decay (time dependent), we find a correlation in the composition of continental crust after 430 Myr ago, which is coeval with the onset of enhanced complexity and stability in sedimentary systems related to the evolution of vascular plants. The expansion of terrestrial vegetation brought channelled sand-bed and meandering rivers, muddy floodplains and thicker soils, lengthening the duration of weathering before final marine deposition. Collectively, our results suggest that the evolution of vascular plants coupled the degree of weathering and timescales of sediment routing to depositional basins where they were subsequently subducted and melted. The late Palaeozoic isotopic shift of zircon indicates that the greening of the continents was recorded in the deep Earth.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The data associated with this paper are available via FigShare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.20092598.v1.
References
Bar-On, Y. M., Phillips, R. & Milo, R. The biomass distribution on Earth. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 115, 6506–6511 (2018).
Corenblit, D. et al. Feedbacks between geomorphology and biota controlling Earth surface processes and landforms: a review of foundation concepts and current understandings. Earth Sci. Rev. 106, 307–331 (2011).
Brasier, A. T., Culwick, T., Battison, L., Callow, R. H. T. & Brasier, M. D. Evaluating evidence from the Torridonian Supergroup (Scotland, UK) for eukaryotic life on land in the Proterozoic. Geol. Soc. Lond. Spec. Publ. 448, 121–144 (2017).
Strother, P. K. & Foster, C. A fossil record of land plant origins from charophyte algae. Science 373, 792–796 (2021).
Rubinstein, C. V., Gerrienne, P., de la Puente, G. S., Astini, R. A. & Steemans, P. Early Middle Ordovician evidence for land plants in Argentina (eastern Gondwana). N. Phytol. 188, 365–369 (2010).
Wellman, C. H., Steemans, P. & Vecoli, M. Palaeophytogeography of Ordovician–Silurian land plants. Geol. Soc. Lond. Mem. 38, 461–476 (2013).
Harrison, C. J. & Morris, J. L. The origin and early evolution of vascular plant shoots and leaves. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 373, 20160496 (2018).
Wellman, C. et al. Low tropical diversity during the adaptive radiation of early land plants. Nat. Plants 8, 104–109 (2022).
Davies, N. S. & Gibling, M. R. Cambrian to Devonian evolution of alluvial systems: the sedimentological impact of the earliest land plants. Earth Sci. Rev. 98, 171–200 (2010).
McMahon, W. J. & Davies, N. S. Evolution of alluvial mudrock forced by early land plants. Science 359, 1022–1024 (2018).
Rafiei, M. & Kennedy, M. Weathering in a world without terrestrial life recorded in the Mesoproterozoic Velkerri Formation. Nat. Commun. 10, 3448 (2019).
Kalderon-Asael, B. et al. A lithium-isotope perspective on the evolution of carbon and silicon cycles. Nature 595, 394–398 (2021).
Mitchell, R. L. et al. Cryptogamic ground covers as analogues for early terrestrial biospheres: initiation and evolution of biologically mediated proto‐soils. Geobiology 19, 292–306 (2021).
Hetherington, A. J. & Dolan, L. Stepwise and independent origins of roots among land plants. Nature 561, 235–238 (2018).
Moulton, K. L., West, J. & Berner, R. A. Solute flux and mineral mass balance approaches to the quantification of plant effects on silicate weathering. Am. J. Sci. 300, 539–570 (2000).
Davies, N. S. & McMahon, W. J. Land plant evolution and global erosion rates. Chem. Geol. 567, 120128 (2021).
Zeichner, S. S. et al. Early plant organics increased global terrestrial mud deposition through enhanced flocculation. Science 371, 526–529 (2021).
Berry, C. M. & Fairon-Demaret, M. The architecture of Pseudosporochnus nodosus Leclercq et Banks: a Middle Devonian cladoxylopsid from Belgium. Int. J. Plant Sci. 163, 699–713 (2002).
Stein, W. E. et al. Mid-Devonian Archaeopteris roots signal revolutionary change in earliest fossil forests. Curr. Biol. 30, 421–431 (2020).
Davies, N. S. & Gibling, M. R. Paleozoic vegetation and the Siluro-Devonian rise of fluvial lateral accretion sets. Geology 38, 51–54 (2010).
Brasier, A. T. Searching for travertines, calcretes and speleothems in deep time: processes, appearances, predictions and the impact of plants. Earth Sci. Rev. 104, 213–239 (2011).
Brasier, A. T., Morris, J. L. & Hillier, R. D. Carbon isotopic evidence for organic matter oxidation in soils of the Old Red Sandstone (Silurian to Devonian, South Wales, UK). J. Geol. Soc. 171, 621–634 (2014).
Moulton, K. L. & Berner, R. A. Quantification of the effect of plants on weathering: studies in Iceland. Geology 26, 895–898 (1998).
Eiler, J. M. Oxygen isotope variations of basaltic lavas and upper mantle rocks. Rev. Mineral. Geochem. 43, 319–364 (2001).
McKeegan, K. D. et al. The oxygen isotopic composition of the Sun inferred from captured solar wind. Science 332, 1528–1532 (2011).
Clauer, N., O’Neil, J. R. & Bonnot-Courtois, C. The effect of natural weathering on the chemical and isotopic compositions of biotites. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 46, 1755–1762 (1982).
Bindeman, I. N., Bekker, A. & Zakharov, D. O. Oxygen isotope perspective on crustal evolution on early Earth: a record of Precambrian shales with emphasis on Paleoproterozoic glaciations and Great Oxygenation Event. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 437, 101–113 (2016).
Lipp, A. G. et al. The composition and weathering of the continents over geologic time. Geochem. Perspect. Lett. 7, 21–26 (2021).
Lenton, T. M., Crouch, M., Johnson, M., Pires, N. & Dolan, L. First plants cooled the Ordovician. Nat. Geosci. 5, 86–89 (2012).
Berner, R. A. The rise of plants and their effect on weathering and atmospheric CO2. Science 276, 544–546 (1997).
Plank, T., Kelley, K. A., Murray, R. W. & Stern, L. Q. Chemical composition of sediments subducting at the Izu-Bonin trench. Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst. 8, Q04I16 (2007).
White, W. M. & Dupré, B. Sediment subduction and magma genesis in the Lesser Antilles: isotopic and trace element constraints. J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth 91, 5927–5941 (1986).
Spencer, C. J. et al. Evidence for melting mud in Earth’s mantle from extreme oxygen isotope signatures in zircon. Geology 45, 975–978 (2017).
Lackey, J. S., Valley, J. W. & Saleeby, J. B. Supracrustal input to magmas in the deep crust of Sierra Nevada batholith: evidence from high-δ18O zircon. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 235, 315–330 (2005).
Hopkinson, T. N. et al. The identification and significance of pure sediment-derived granites. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 467, 57–63 (2017).
Kemp, A. I. S., Hawkesworth, C. J., Collins, W. J., Gray, C. M. & Blevin, P. L. Isotopic evidence for rapid continental growth in an extensional accretionary orogen: the Tasmanides, eastern Australia. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 284, 455–466 (2009).
Bird, P. An updated digital model of plate boundaries. Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst. 4, 1027 (2003).
Valley, J. W. et al. 4.4 billion years of crustal maturation: oxygen isotope ratios of magmatic zircon. Contrib. Mineral. Petrol. 150, 561–580 (2005).
Cavosie, A. J., Valley, J. W. & Wilde, S. A. Magmatic δ18O in 4400-3900 Ma detrital zircons: a record of the alteration and recycling of crust in the Early Archean. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 235, 663–681 (2005).
Spencer, C. J. et al. Disparities in oxygen isotopes of detrital and igneous zircon identify erosional bias in crustal rock record. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 577, 117248 (2022).
Spencer, C. J., Dani, M., Ito, H. & Hoiland, C. Rapid exhumation of Earth’s youngest exposed granites driven by subduction of an oceanic arc. Geophys. Res. Lett. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL080579 (2019).
Bouvier, A., Vervoort, J. D. & Patchett, P. J. The Lu–Hf and Sm–Nd isotopic composition of CHUR: constraints from unequilibrated chondrites and implications for the bulk composition of terrestrial planets. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 273, 48–57 (2008).
Keller, C. B. et al. Neoproterozoic glacial origin of the Great Unconformity. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 116, 1136–1145 (2019).
Bucholz, C. E. & Spencer, C. J. Strongly peraluminous granites across the Archean-Proterozoic transition. J. Petrol. 60, 1299–1348 (2019).
Bindeman, I. N. et al. Rapid emergence of subaerial landmasses and onset of a modern hydrologic cycle 2.5 billion years ago. Nature 557, 545–548 (2018).
Liebmann, J. et al. Emergence of continents above sea-level influences sediment melt composition. Terra Nova https://doi.org/10.1111/ter.12531 (2021).
Giardino, J. R. & Houser, C. in Developments in Earth Surface Processes Vol. 19 (eds Giardino, J. R. & Houser, C.) 1–13 (Elsevier, 2015).
Castelltort, S. & Van Den Driessche, J. How plausible are high-frequency sediment supply-driven cycles in the stratigraphic record? Sediment. Geol. 157, 3–13 (2003).
Tofelde, S., Bernhardt, A., Guerit, L. & Romans, B. W. Times associated with source-to-sink propagation of environmental signals during landscape transience. Front. Earth Sci. 9, 227 (2021).
Bufe, A. et al. Controls on the lateral channel‐migration rate of braided channel systems in coarse non‐cohesive sediment. Earth Surf. Process. Landf. 44, 2823–2836 (2019).
Clift, P. D. & Giosan, L. Sediment fluxes and buffering in the post‐glacial Indus Basin. Basin Res. 26, 369–386 (2014).
Repasch, M. et al. Sediment transit time and floodplain storage dynamics in alluvial rivers revealed by meteoric 10Be. J. Geophys. Res. Earth Surf. 125, e2019JF005419 (2020).
Suresh, P. O., Dosseto, A., Hesse, P. P. & Handley, H. K. Very long hillslope transport timescales determined from uranium-series isotopes in river sediments from a large, tectonically stable catchment. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 142, 442–457 (2014).
Li, C. et al. The time scale of river sediment source-to-sink processes in East Asia. Chem. Geol. 446, 138–146 (2016).
Sheldon, N. D. & Tabor, N. J. Quantitative paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic reconstruction using paleosols. Earth Sci. Rev. 95, 1–52 (2009).
Ben-Israel, M., Armon, M., Team, A. & Matmon, A. Sediment residence times in large rivers quantified using a cosmogenic nuclides based transport model and implications for buffering of continental erosion signals. J. Geophys. Res. Earth Surf. 127, e2021JF006417 (2022).
Gibling, M. R. & Davies, N. S. Palaeozoic landscapes shaped by plant evolution. Nat. Geosci. 5, 99–105 (2012).
Plank, T. & Langmuir, C. H. Tracing trace elements from sediment input to volcanic output at subduction zones. Nature 362, 739–743 (1993).
Davies, N. S. et al. Discussion on ‘Tectonic and environmental controls on Palaeozoic fluvial environments: reassessing the impacts of early land plants on sedimentation’ Journal of the Geological Society, London, https://doi.org/10.1144/jgs2016-063. J. Geol. Soc. 174, 947–950 (2017).
Jacobsen, S. B. Isotopic constraints on crustal growth and recycling. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 90, 315–329 (1988).
Niklas, K. J., Tiffney, B. H. & Knoll, A. H. Patterns in vascular land plant diversification. Nature 303, 614–616 (1983).
Dahl, T. W. & Arens, S. K. M. The impacts of land plant evolution on Earth’s climate and oxygenation state—an interdisciplinary review. Chem. Geol. 547, 119665 (2020).
Spencer, C. J., Kirkland, C. L. & Taylor, R. J. M. Strategies towards statistically robust interpretations of in situ U–Pb zircon geochronology. Geosci. Front. 7, 581–589 (2016).
Spencer, C. J., Kirkland, C. L., Roberts, N. M. W., Evans, N. J. & Liebmann, J. Strategies towards robust interpretations of in situ zircon Lu–Hf isotope analyses. Geosci. Front. 11, 843–853 (2020).
Liebmann, J., Spencer, C. J., Kirkland, C. L., Xia, X. P. & Bourdet, J. Effect of water on δ18O in zircon. Chem. Geol. 574, 120243 (2021).
Spencer, C. J. et al. Paleoproterozoic increase in zircon δ18O driven by rapid emergence of continental crust. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 257, 16–25 (2019).
Jensen, G. Closed-form estimation of multiple change-point models. PeerJ Preprints https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.90v3 (2013).
Gallagher, K. et al. Inference of abrupt changes in noisy geochemical records using transdimensional changepoint models. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 311, 182–194 (2011).
Vervoort, J. D. & Kemp, A. I. S. Clarifying the zircon Hf isotope record of crust-mantle evolution. Chem. Geol. 425, 65–75 (2016).
Roberts, N. M. W. & Spencer, C. J. The zircon archive of continent formation through time. Geol. Soc. Lond. Spec. Publ. 389, 197–225 (2015).
Budd, G. E. & Mann, R. P. History is written by the victors: the effect of the push of the past on the fossil record. Evolution 72, 2276–2291 (2018).
Cunningham, J. A., Liu, A. G., Bengtson, S. & Donoghue, P. C. J. The origin of animals: can molecular clocks and the fossil record be reconciled? BioEssays 39, 1–12 (2017).
Dos Reis, M. et al. Uncertainty in the timing of origin of animals and the limits of precision in molecular timescales. Curr. Biol. 25, 2939–2950 (2015).
Husson, J. M. & Peters, S. E. Nature of the sedimentary rock record and its implications for Earth system evolution. Emerg. Top. Life Sci. 2, 125–136 (2018).
Donoghue, P. C. J., Harrison, C. J., Paps, J. & Schneider, H. The evolutionary emergence of land plants. Curr. Biol. 31, R1281–R1298 (2021).
Land, L. S. & Lynch, F. L. δ18O values of mudrocks: More evidence for an 18O-buffered ocean. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 60, 3347–3352 (1996).
Payne, J. L., Hand, M., Pearson, N. J., Barovich, K. M. & McInerney, D. J. Crustal thickening and clay: Controls on O isotope variation in global magmatism and siliclastic sedimentary rocks. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 412, 70–76 (2015).
Acknowledgements
This paper benefited greatly from discussions with B. Keller. C.J.S., X.W. and M.S. were supported by the Natural Sciences and Environment Research Council, Discovery Grant RGPIN-2020-05639. T.R.I.M. was supported by the Natural Sciences and Environment Research Council, Undergraduate Student Research Award 551207 – 2020 with additional funding provided by L. Godin. T.M.G. and T.H. were supported by the Turing Institute under the EPSRC grant EP/N510129/1. N.S.D. and W.J.M. were supported by NERC grant NE/T00696X. G.-M.L. acknowledges support from the State Scholarship Fund of China Scholarship Council (202006410023).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
C.J.S. conceived of the idea and, with the help of X.W., T.R.I.M., M.S., N.S.D. and W.J.M., compiled and interpreted data. C.J.S., X.W., T.H., T.M.G. and G.-M.L. assisted with the statistical analysis. C.J.S., X.W., W.J.M. and T.H. constructed the figures. C.J.S., N.S.D. and T.M.G. wrote the manuscript with input from X.W., W.J.M., T.R.I.M., T.H., P.K.P., A.B., M.S. and G.-M.L.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Nature Geoscience thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Rebecca Neely, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Extended data
Extended Data Fig. 2 Transdimensional Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation of the zircon crustal residence versus δ18O slope, r2, and correlation coefficients.
MCMC step change results demonstrate a statistically valid change point at 450-410 Myr ago with a maximum likelihood at 440 Myr ago (using one million simulations).
Extended Data Fig. 3 Transdimensional Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation and conjugate partitioned recursion (CPR) of the percentage of mudrocks through time.
MCMC yields a statistically valid change point 430–420 Myr ago with a maximum likelihood at 423 Myr ago (using one million simulations) whereas CPR shows a change point at 430 Myr ago. Data from ref. 17.
Extended Data Fig. 4 Crustal residence time vs δ18O in zircon through time.
This includes (A) the Archean Eon (pre-2500 Myr ago) and major supercontinent assembly events including (B) Nuna from 2200 to 1700 Myr ago, (C) Columbia from 1700 to 1200 Myr ago, (D) Rodinia from 1200 to 900 Myr ago, Pangea from 400 to 250 Myr ago, and (F) post-Pangea assembly from 250 Myr ago to the present.
Extended Data Fig. 5 Crustal residence versus δ18O in zircon since 720 Myr ago (A–E).
It is assumed here that all primary magmas are initially derived from the mantle with a δ18O of ~5.5‰ and a crustal residence time less than ~250 Myr (approximating the depleted mantle compositions61). The degree of correlation between εHf and δ18O in zircon is markedly different in the latter two panels (A and B), with the panels covering pre-430 Myr ago showing greater degrees of scatter and weak correlations. (F) r2 versus slope of the regression from 700 Myr ago to 0 Myr ago in 10 Myr steps using a rolling window.
Extended Data Fig. 6 Statistical relationship between crustal residence time (CR) and δ18O through time.
A step-change algorithm (conjugate partitioned recursion67) demonstrates a statistically valid step change in the slope, r2 and correlation coefficients at either 450 Myr ago (linear regression slope and Pearson’s correlation) or 430 Myr ago (r2 and Spearman’s rank correlation). The increase in vascular plants at 450 Myr ago and the increase in mudrock percentage at 430 Myr ago are shown as vertical dashed lines.
Source data
Source Data Fig. 1
Compiled zircon U–Pb, Lu–Hf, and δ18O database.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Spencer, C.J., Davies, N.S., Gernon, T.M. et al. Composition of continental crust altered by the emergence of land plants. Nat. Geosci. 15, 735–740 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00995-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00995-2
This article is cited by
-
Enhanced U-Pb detrital zircon, Lu-Hf zircon, δ18O zircon, and Sm-Nd whole rock global databases
Scientific Data (2024)
-
Plant fingerprints in the deep Earth
Nature Geoscience (2022)