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Letter
Nature 443, 969-972 (26 October 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature05239; Received 8 December 2005; Accepted 8 September 2006
There is a Brief Communications Arising (3 May 2007) associated with this document.
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John Innes Centre Project Leader in Plant or Microbial Sciences
- University of East Anglia
- Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK
Head-Preclinical
- Syngene International
- Bangalore, Karnataka 560099 India
A palaeotemperature curve for the Precambrian oceans based on silicon isotopes in cherts
François Robert1 & Marc Chaussidon2
- Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, CNRS LEME NanoAnalyses, UMS 2679, 57 rue Cuvier, 75005 Paris, France
- Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques, CRPG-CNRS BP20, 54501 Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France
Correspondence to: François Robert1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to F.R. (Email: robert@mnhn.fr) or M.C. (Email: chocho@crpg.cnrs-nancy.fr).
Abstract
The terrestrial sediment record indicates that the Earth's climate varied drastically in the Precambrian era (before 550 million years ago), ranging from surface temperatures similar to or higher than today's to global glaciation events1. The most continuous record of sea surface temperatures of that time has been derived from variations in oxygen isotope ratios of cherts (siliceous sediments)2, but the long-term cooling of the oceans inferred from those data3, 4, 5 has been questioned because the oxygen isotope signature could have been reset through the exchange with hydrothermal fluids after deposition of the sediments6. Here we show that the silicon isotopic composition of cherts more than 550 million years old shows systematic variations with age that support the earlier conclusion of long-term ocean cooling and exclude post-depositional exchange as the main source of the isotopic variations. In agreement with other lines of evidence1, 7, a model of the silicon cycle in the Precambrian era shows that the observed silicon isotope variations imply seawater temperature changes from about 70 °C 3,500 million years ago to about 20 °C 800 million years ago.
- Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, CNRS LEME NanoAnalyses, UMS 2679, 57 rue Cuvier, 75005 Paris, France
- Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques, CRPG-CNRS BP20, 54501 Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France
Correspondence to: François Robert1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to F.R. (Email: robert@mnhn.fr) or M.C. (Email: chocho@crpg.cnrs-nancy.fr).
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