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1.
The environmental expression of sulfur compound disproportionation has been placed between 640 and 1050 million years ago (Ma) and linked to increases in atmospheric oxygen. These arguments have their basis in temporal changes in the magnitude of 34S/32S fractionations between sulfate and sulfide. Here, we present a Proterozoic seawater sulfate isotope record that includes the less abundant sulfur isotope 33S. These measurements imply that sulfur compound disproportionation was an active part of the sulfur cycle by 1300 Ma and that progressive Earth surface oxygenation may have characterized the Mesoproterozoic.  相似文献   

2.
The Archean sulfur cycle and the early history of atmospheric oxygen   总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1  
The isotope record of sedimentary sulfides can help resolve the history of oxygen accumulation into the atmosphere. We measured sulfur isotopic fractionation during microbial sulfate reduction up to 88 degrees C and show how sulfate reduction rate influences the preservation of biological fractionations in sediments. The sedimentary sulfur isotope record suggests low concentrations of seawater sulfate and atmospheric oxygen in the early Archean (3.4 to 2.8 billion years ago). The accumulation of oxygen and sulfate began later, in the early Proterozoic (2.5 to 0.54 billion years ago).  相似文献   

3.
Models describing the evolution of the partial pressure of atmospheric oxygen over Phanerozoic time are constrained by the mass balances required between the inputs and outputs of carbon and sulfur to the oceans. This constraint has limited the applicability of proposed negative feedback mechanisms for maintaining levels of atmospheric O(2) at biologically permissable levels. Here we describe a modeling approach that incorporates O(2)-dependent carbon and sulfur isotope fractionation using data obtained from laboratory experiments on carbon-13 discrimination by vascular land plants and marine plankton. The model allows us to calculate a Phanerozoic O(2) history that agrees with independent models and with biological and physical constraints and supports the hypothesis of a high atmospheric O(2) content during the Carboniferous (300 million years ago), a time when insect gigantism was widespread.  相似文献   

4.
The stable-carbon isotope ratios for the flesh of marine and terrestrial animals from Canada's Pacific coast differ by 7.9 +/- 0.4 per mil, reflecting the approximately 7 per mil difference between oceanic and atmospheric carbon. This difference is passed on to human consumers. The carbon isotopic values (delta(13)C) for human collagen thus yield direct information on the relative amounts of marine and terrestrial foods in prehistoric diets.  相似文献   

5.
Freshwater lake marl and mollusks from Indiana show variations in ratios of oxygen-18 to oxygen-16 of a few per mil during the Postglacial. For the last 9000 years these variations are about 1 per mil for properly selected lake sediments. Thus the oxygen isotope composition of atmospheric precipitation appears relatively stable over this interval, indicating stationary atmospheric circulation patterns over the Great Lakes region. A reduction in oxygen-18 content around 10,000 years ago corresponds with the climate change indicated by pollen profiles. Large systematic differences were found between carbon-13 and oxygen-18 content of marl and mollusks.  相似文献   

6.
The paleomagnetic chronology established for a Pliocene-Early Pleistocene sequence of marine sediments in New Zealand reveals that marked climatic coolings based on Foraminifera and oxygen isotope ratios in the late Cenozoic preceded the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary, which is taken to be at the base of the Gilsá geomagnetic polarity event (1.79 million years ago). Major temperature fluctuations occur from the upper Gauss (Middle Pliocene) to middle Matuyama (Early Pleistocene). The first major Pliocene cooling spans the Gauss-Matuyama boundary (2.43 million years ago). A uniform and rapid (40 centimeters per 1000 years) rate of deposition is shown for the moderately shallow marine environment.  相似文献   

7.
Comparisons of carbon isotopic data on benthic foraminifera from Deep Sea Drilling Project sites 502 (western Caribbean) and 503 (eastern Pacific) indicate that the difference between the Atlantic and the Pacific in the per mil enrichment in carbon-13 of total dissolved carbon dioxide increased about 6 million years ago and again 3 million years ago, when the difference reached the modern level (1 per mil). Comparisons of planktonic foraminiferal oxygen isotopic data for the Caribbean and the Pacific suggest that the salinity of Caribbean surface waters began increasing 4 million years ago, possibly in response to shoaling of the Panama isthmus. These results suggest that modern circulation patterns in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific developed by 3 million years ago in concert with changing tectonic, climatic, and biogeographic patterns.  相似文献   

8.
We have found evidence for a bolide impacting Earth in the mid-Devonian ( approximately 380 million years ago), including high concentrations of shocked quartz, Ni, Cr, As, V, and Co anomalies; a large negative carbon isotope shift (-9 per mil); and microspherules and microcrysts at Jebel Mech Irdane in the Anti Atlas desert near Rissani, Morocco. This impact is important because it is coincident with a major global extinction event (Kacák/otomari event), suggesting a possible cause-and-effect relation between the impact and the extinction. The result may represent the extinction of as many as 40% of all living marine animal genera.  相似文献   

9.
Laser-extraction oxygen isotope and major element analyses of individual glass spherules from Haitian Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary sediments demonstrate that the glasses fall on a mixing line between an isotopically heavy (delta(18)O = 14 per mil) high-calcium composition and an isotopically light (delta(18)O = 6 per mil) high-silicon composition. This trend can be explained by melting of heterogeneous source rocks during the impact of an asteroid (or comet) approximately 65 million years ago. The data indicate that the glasses are a mixture of carbonate and silicate rocks and exclude derivation of the glasses either by volcanic processes or as mixtures of sulfate-rich evaporate and silicate rocks.  相似文献   

10.
Oxygen isotopes in marine sulfate (delta18O(SO4)) measured in marine barite show variability over the past 10 million years, including a 5 per mil decrease during the Plio-Pleistocene, with near-constant values during the Miocene that are slightly enriched over the modern ocean. A numerical model suggests that sea level fluctuations during Plio-Pleistocene glacial cycles affected the sulfur cycle by reducing the area of continental shelves and increasing the oxidative weathering of pyrite. The data also require that sulfate concentrations were 10 to 20% lower in the late Miocene than today.  相似文献   

11.
Age estimates for the opening of Drake Passage range from 49 to 17 million years ago (Ma), complicating interpretations of the relationship between ocean circulation and global cooling. Secular variations of neodymium isotope ratios at Agulhas Ridge (Southern Ocean, Atlantic sector) suggest an influx of shallow Pacific seawater approximately 41 Ma. The timing of this connection and the subsequent deepening of the passage coincide with increased biological productivity and abrupt climate reversals. Circulation/productivity linkages are proposed as a mechanism for declining atmospheric carbon dioxide. These results also indicate that Drake Passage opened before the Tasmanian Gateway, implying the late Eocene establishment of a complete circum-Antarctic pathway.  相似文献   

12.
Measurements of stomatal density and delta(13)C of limber pine (Pinus flexilis) needles (leaves) preserved in pack rat middens from the Great Basin reveal shifts in plant physiology and leaf morphology during the last 30,000 years. Sites were selected so as to offset glacial to Holocene climatic differences and thus to isolate the effects of changing atmospheric CO(2) levels. Stomatal density decreased approximately 17 percent and delta(13)C decreased approximately 1.5 per mil during deglaciation from 15,000 to 12,000 years ago, concomitant with a 30 percent increase in atmospheric CO(2). Water-use efficiency increased approximately 15 percent during deglaciation, if temperature and humidity were held constant and the proxy values for CO(2) and delta(13)C of past atmospheres are accurate. The delta(13)C variations may help constrain hypotheses about the redistribution of carbon between the atmosphere and biosphere during the last glacial-interglacial cycle.  相似文献   

13.
Molybdenum isotope evidence for widespread anoxia in mid-Proterozoic oceans   总被引:2,自引:0,他引:2  
How much dissolved oxygen was present in the mid-Proterozoic oceans between 1.8 and 1.0 billion years ago is debated vigorously. One model argues for oxygenation of the oceans soon after the initial rise of atmospheric oxygen approximately 2.3 billion years ago. Recent evidence for H(2)S in some mid-Proterozoic marine basins suggests, however, that the deep ocean remained anoxic until much later. New molybdenum isotope data from modern and ancient sediments indicate expanded anoxia during the mid-Proterozoic compared to the present-day ocean. Consequently, oxygenation of the deep oceans may have lagged that of the atmosphere by over a billion years.  相似文献   

14.
We report atmospheric methane carbon isotope ratios (delta13CH4) from the Western Greenland ice margin spanning the Younger Dryas-to-Preboreal (YD-PB) transition. Over the recorded approximately 800 years, delta13CH4 was around -46 per mil (per thousand); that is, approximately 1 per thousand higher than in the modern atmosphere and approximately 5.5 per thousand higher than would be expected from budgets without 13C-rich anthropogenic emissions. This requires higher natural 13C-rich emissions or stronger sink fractionation than conventionally assumed. Constant delta13CH4 during the rise in methane concentration at the YD-PB transition is consistent with additional emissions from tropical wetlands, or aerobic plant CH4 production, or with a multisource scenario. A marine clathrate source is unlikely.  相似文献   

15.
A detailed record of the strontium-87 to strontium-86 ratio in seawater during the last 100 million years was determined by measuring this ratio in 137 well-preserved and well-dated fossil foraminifera samples. Sample preservation was evaluated from scanning electron microscopy studies, measured strontium-calcium ratios, and pore water strontium isotope ratios. The evolution of the strontium isotopic ratio in seawater offers a means to evaluate long-term changes in the global strontium isotope mass balance. Results show that the marine strontium isotope composition can be used for correlating and dating well-preserved authigenic marine sediments throughout much of the Cenozoic to a precision of +/-1 million years. The strontium-87 to strontium-86 ratio in seawater increased sharply across the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary, but this feature is not readily explained as strontium input from a bolide impact on land.  相似文献   

16.
Atmospheric influence of Earth's earliest sulfur cycle   总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1  
Mass-independent isotopic signatures for delta(33)S, delta(34)S, and delta(36)S from sulfide and sulfate in Precambrian rocks indicate that a change occurred in the sulfur cycle between 2090 and 2450 million years ago (Ma). Before 2450 Ma, the cycle was influenced by gas-phase atmospheric reactions. These atmospheric reactions also played a role in determining the oxidation state of sulfur, implying that atmospheric oxygen partial pressures were low and that the roles of oxidative weathering and of microbial oxidation and reduction of sulfur were minimal. Atmospheric fractionation processes should be considered in the use of sulfur isotopes to study the onset and consequences of microbial fractionation processes in Earth's early history.  相似文献   

17.
Oxygen isotope data for a Pliocene interval from 3.6 to 2.8 million years ago show a mean increase (0.5 per mil) of benthic delta(18)O at about 3.2 million years ago, whereas planktic delta(18)O does not increase. This lack of covariance indicates that the event at 3.2 million years did not result in a permanent increase in the ice budget of either the Northern or the Southern Hemisphere.  相似文献   

18.
The sulfur cycle influences the respiration of sedimentary organic matter, the oxidation state of the atmosphere and oceans, and the composition of seawater. However, the factors governing the major sulfur fluxes between seawater and sedimentary reservoirs remain incompletely understood. Using macrostratigraphic data, we quantified sulfate evaporite burial fluxes through Phanerozoic time. Approximately half of the modern riverine sulfate flux comes from weathering of recently deposited evaporites. Rates of sulfate burial are unsteady and linked to changes in the area of marine environments suitable for evaporite formation and preservation. By contrast, rates of pyrite burial and weathering are higher, less variable, and largely balanced, highlighting a greater role of the sulfur cycle in regulating atmospheric oxygen.  相似文献   

19.
Bitumen is a common associate of carbonate-hosted lead-zinc deposits. On the Pine Point lead-zinc property, Northwest Territories, Canada, there are two forms of bitumen. Unaltered bitumens have atomic hydrogen/carbon ratios of about 1.4, sulfur contents of about 7.8 percent, and sulfur isotope ratios ( section sign(34)S) of approximately +4.6 per mil. Altered bitumens occur in proximity to sulfide ore bodies and white sparry dolomite. Their hydrogen/carbon ratios are about 1.02, the sulfur contents average 22 percent, and the section sign(34)S values are about +12.4 per mil. These data indicate that some bitumen has participated in the thermochemical reduction of sulfate to produce hydrogen sulfide required to precipitate the ores. Mass balance considerations show that the amount and degree of alteration of bitumen is more than adequate to account for the reduced sulfur species (lead, zinc, and iron sulfides) deposited at Pine Point. These reactions may provide an important means of generating the large volumes of sulfide necessary to precipitate ore bodies in carbonate rocks.  相似文献   

20.
Whereas dissimilatory sulfate reduction in marine environments has been postulated on the basis of sulfur isotope abundances as commencing before about 2.8 x 10(9) years ago, data from the Huronian Supergroup, Canada, suggest that oxidative-reductive reactions involving sulfur in continental environments were not significant before about 2.2 x 10(9) years ago.  相似文献   

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