Animal evolution, bioturbation, and the sulfate concentration of the oceans.
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TLDR
The evolution of bioturbation is linked to the significant deposition of sulfate evaporate minerals, which is largely a phenomena of the Phanerozoic, the last 542 million years and the time over which animals rose to prominence.Abstract:
As recognized already by Charles Darwin, animals are geobiological agents. Darwin observed that worms aerate and mix soils on a massive scale, aiding in the decomposition of soil organic matter. A similar statement can be made about marine benthic animals. This mixing, also known as bioturbation, not only aides in the decomposition of sedimentary organic material, but as contended here, it has also significantly influenced the chemistry of seawater. In particular, it is proposed that sediment mixing by bioturbating organisms resulted in a severalfold increase in seawater sulfate concentration. For this reason, the evolution of bioturbation is linked to the significant deposition of sulfate evaporate minerals, which is largely a phenomena of the Phanerozoic, the last 542 million years and the time over which animals rose to prominence.read more
Citations
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Large Sulfur Isotope Fractionation Does Not Require Disproportionation
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that a pure, actively growing culture of a marine sulfate-reducing bacterium can deplete 34S by up to 66‰ during sulfate reduction alone and in the absence of an extracellular oxidative sulfur cycle, suggesting similar magnitudes of sulfur isotope fractionation in sedimentary rocks do not unambiguously record the presence of other sulfur-based metabolisms or the stepwise oxygenation of Earth’s surface environment during the Proterozoic.
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The Neoproterozoic oxygenation event: Environmental perturbations and biogeochemical cycling
TL;DR: The oxygen content of the Earth's surface environment is thought to have increased in two broad steps: the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE) around the Archean-Proterozoic boundary and the Neoproterogeneic Oxygenations Event (NOE), during which oxygen possibly accumulated to the levels required to support animal life and ventilate the deep oceans as discussed by the authors.
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Ocean oxygenation in the wake of the Marinoan glaciation
Swapan K. Sahoo,Noah J. Planavsky,Brian Kendall,Brian Kendall,Xinqiang Wang,Xiaoying Shi,Clint Scott,Ariel D. Anbar,Timothy W. Lyons,Ganqing Jiang +9 more
TL;DR: The data provide evidence for an early Ediacaran oxygenation event, which pre-dates the previous estimates for post-Marinoan oxygenation by more than 50 million years, and seem to support a link between the most severe glaciations in Earth’s history, the oxygenation of the Earth's surface environments, and the earliest diversification of animals.
References
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The age curves of sulfur and oxygen isotopes in marine sulfate and their mutual interpretation
TL;DR: In this article, a model involving symmetrical fluxes is introduced to take advantage of the oxygen data, and the measured δ34S and δ18O correspond to variations in these isotopes in sulfate of the world ocean surface.
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Mineralization of organic matter in the sea bed—the role of sulphate reduction
TL;DR: In this paper, a comparative survey of aerobic and anaerobic mineralization in the sea bed based on direct rate measurements of the two processes is presented, and the results demonstrate a surprisingly high contribution from the sulphate-reducers.
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Atmospheric Influence of Earth's Earliest Sulfur Cycle
TL;DR: Mass-independent isotopic signatures in Precambrian rocks indicate that a change occurred in the sulfur cycle between 2090 and 2450 million years ago, 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.
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Andrey Bekker,Heinrich D. Holland,Pei-Ling Wang,D. Rumble,Holly J. Stein,Judith L. Hannah,Louis Coetzee,Nicolas J. Beukes +7 more
TL;DR: It is found that syngenetic pyrite is present in organic-rich shales of the 2.32-Gyr-old Rooihoogte and Timeball Hill formations, South Africa, indicating that atmospheric oxygen was present at significant levels during the deposition of these units.