Precambrian geology articles within Nature Geoscience

Featured

  • All Minerals Considered |

    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.

    • Jesse Reimink

  • News & Views |

    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.

    • Fabrice Gaillard

  • Article |

    Neoarchaean arc magmas in Superior Province, Canada, were relatively oxidized and sulfur rich, reaching compositions comparable to modern subduction zones by approximately 2.7 Ga, according to analysis of sulfur speciation in zircon-hosted apatite grains.

    • Xuyang Meng
    • , Adam C. Simon
    •  & Jeremy P. Richards

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rotational deceleration has increased daylength on Earth, potentially linking the increased burial of organic carbon by cyanobacterial mats and planetary oxygenation, according to experiments and modelling of Precambrian benthic ecosystems.

    • J. M. Klatt
    • , A. Chennu
    •  & G. J. Dick

  • Article |

    Reduced planetary albedo due to fewer low clouds on early Earth could explain some 40% of the required forcing to offset the faint young Sun, according to global climate model experiments.

    • Colin Goldblatt
    • , Victoria L. McDonald
    •  & Kelly E. McCusker

  • News & Views |

    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.

    • Desiree Roerdink

  • Article |

    Formation of mass-independent isotope fractionation of sulfur signatures recorded in Archaean sedimentary rocks could have occurred in an oxygen-rich atmosphere, according to thermodynamic and kinetic calculations and analysis of Earth’s early sulfur cycle.

    • Hiroshi Ohmoto

  • Article |

    The oceans probably remained well-oxygenated for millions of years after the Palaeoproterozoic Lomagundi–Jatuli Event, according to high concentrations and isotope signatures of redox-sensitive metals in the 2-billion-year-old Zaonega Formation, Russia.

    • Kaarel Mänd
    • , Stefan V. Lalonde
    •  & Kurt O. Konhauser

  • News & Views |

    Differential cycling of carbonate and organic carbon in the mantle may link the Great Oxidation Event and the subsequent increase in carbon isotope values, according to a model that links the Earth’s surface and interior.

    • Jeremy K. Caves Rugenstein

  • News & Views |

    Subduction processes may have operated very early in Earth’s history according to the heavy silicon isotope compositions of Archaean igneous rocks. The silicon that precipitated out of the Archaean oceans as chert was subducted and melted to yield seawater-like heavy isotope signatures in early granitic rocks.

    • Franck Poitrasson

  • News & Views |

    Confidence that banded iron formations record oxic conditions during deposition is established, as a model demonstrates that they are formed of primary iron oxides rather than secondarily altered silicate minerals.

    • Eva E. Stüeken

  • Article |

    Biologically available nitrogen in the form of ammonium was abundant in the Late Archaean ocean, according to nitrogen isotope and proxy analyses on 2.7 billion year old shales from Zimbabwe.

    • J. Yang
    • , C. K. Junium
    •  & A. L. Zerkle

  • Article |

    Oxidative weathering supplied a crucial flux of nutrients to the late Archaean oceans that sustained methanogenesis and kept the Archaean atmosphere in a methane sweet-spot, according to analyses of nickel isotopes from glacial deposits.

    • Shui-Jiong Wang
    • , Roberta L. Rudnick
    •  & Laura E. Wasylenki

  • Article |

    Earth’s oldest known felsic rocks formed by partial melting at low pressures and high temperatures caused by impact melting of mafic Hadean crust, according to phase equilibria and trace element modelling.

    • Tim E. Johnson
    • , Nicholas J. Gardiner
    •  & Hugh Smithies

  • Article |

    Microbial life colonized the land surface by 3.2 billion years ago, forming complex communities distinct from those in nearby marine environments, according to analyses of fossilized microbial mats in the Moodies Group, South Africa.

    • Martin Homann
    • , Pierre Sansjofre
    •  & Stefan V. Lalonde

  • News & Views |

    A regional oxygenation event 1.6 billion years ago coincided with the appearance of large fossils, but whether the availability of oxygen was the primary driver of the diversification of multicellular organisms remains to be seen.

    • Emma U. Hammarlund

  • News & Views |

    Experimental data reveal that Earth’s mantle melts more readily than previously thought, and may have remained mushy until two to three billion years ago.

    • Stephen Parman

  • Article |

    A persistent melt layer may have existed in the Archaean upper mantle, according to experimental analyses. The melt layer could have decoupled the mantle from the overlying lithosphere, hindering plate tectonics.

    • Denis Andrault
    • , Giacomo Pesce
    •  & Louis Hennet

  • Perspective |

    Ancient hydrothermal deposits formed in the Martian subsurface may be the best targets for finding evidence for ancient life on Mars, and clues about the origin of life on Earth.

    • Joseph R. Michalski
    • , Tullis C. Onstott
    •  & Sarah Stewart Johnson

  • News & Views |

    A combination of two anoxygenic pathways of photosynthesis could have helped to warm early Earth, according to geochemical models. These metabolisms, and attendant biogeochemical feedbacks, could have worked to counter the faint young Sun.

    • Thomas A. Laakso

  • News & Views |

    Ancient lavas reveal the presence of deep mantle reservoirs with anomalously light oxygen signatures. These lavas fingerprint heterogeneous mantle domains in early Earth that may have since been mixed away.

    • Marco Fiorentini

  • Article |

    Impacts could have driven transient subduction events on the Hadean Earth, according to numerical simulations. The scenario reconciles evidence for tectonic activity with that for an otherwise tectonically stagnant early Earth.

    • C. O’Neill
    • , S. Marchi
    •  & W. Bottke

  • News & Views |

    Serpentine minerals in Earth's early upper continental crust suppressed atmospheric oxygen levels until the upper crust became granitic.

    • J. Elis Hoffmann

  • Article |

    A decrease in mafic continental crust coincides with the rise of O2 in the Earth’s surface environments about 3 billion years ago, according to an analysis of sediment chemistry. Reduced rates of serpentinization of mafic material, which produces chemicals that react with O2, could explain the link.

    • Matthijs A. Smit
    •  & Klaus Mezger

  • News & Views |

    The composition of Earth's oldest crust is uncertain. Comparison of the most ancient mineral grains with more recent analogues suggests that formation of the earliest crust was heavily influenced by re-melting of igneous basement rocks.

    • Elizabeth Bell

  • News & Views |

    The composition of Earth's crust depends on the style of plate tectonics and of the melting regimes in the mantle. Analyses of the oldest identified rocks suggest that these styles and the resulting crust have changed over Earth's history.

    • Alan Brandon

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