Precambrian geology articles from across Nature Portfolio

The Isua Supercrustal Belt in Greenland hosts sedimentary rocks that were deposited 3.7 billion years ago in the forearc environment of an active convergent plate boundary, suggesting subduction-related plate tectonics in the Eoarchean, as indicated by geochemical data and tectonostratigraphic analyses of an 80-m drill core.

Deposition of 1.2-billion-year-old Indian limestone in shallow seas near the poles imply balmy conditions of more than 15 °C and significantly higher atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, which expands the spectrum of Earth’s climatic extremes.

Earth’s early continental crust formed by the melting of plagioclase-cumulates. Melting of these rocks, and subsequent crustal delamination and remelting, can explain the growth and differentiation of the continental crust during the Archaean.

Increased phosphorous availability and enhanced rate of primary production in the Ediacaran Ocean could have aided diversification and the rise of complex life, according to geochemical and microscopy analyses of iron formations from northwest China

Subduction may have started as early as 3.3 billion years ago, according to light oxygen isotopes of olivine grains from ancient magmatic rocks of the Barberton Greenstone Belt in Southern Africa which may record the contribution of oceanic crust in the deep mantle

Recording 4.3 billion years of Earth’s history, Jesse Reimink explores the many ways that zircon allows geologists to keep track of the past.

Articles in PNAS and Nature Communications describe abiotic reactions that could have produced oxygen and methane on early Earth.

An article in Science Advances uses Si and O isotopes of Earth’s oldest rocks to identify the onset of crustal recycling, with potential implications for the onset of subduction-like tectonics.

High pressures may have enabled ferric iron-rich silicate melts to coexist with iron metal near the base of magma oceans early in the history of large rocky planets like Earth. This suggests a relatively oxygen-rich atmosphere during the late stages of core formation on these planets.

An article in Science Advances reports the age of the oldest dated piece of cratonic mantle lithosphere (2.8 Ga), which was found at a mid-ocean ridge.

The Archaean atmosphere may have been well oxygenated, according to a reconsideration of sulfur cycling at that time. This challenges the view that sedimentary sulfur records oxygen-poor conditions during Earth’s first two billion years.