CaltechAUTHORS
Published November 7, 2014 | Version Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

Sulfate was a trace constituent of Archean seawater

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon University of British Columbia
  • 2. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 3. ROR icon University of Minnesota
  • 4. ROR icon McMaster University
  • 5. ROR icon University of St Andrews
  • 6. ROR icon Indonesian Institute of Sciences
  • 7. ROR icon University of Kansas
  • 8. ROR icon University of Maryland, College Park
  • 9. ROR icon University of Southern Denmark

Abstract

In the low-oxygen Archean world (>2400 million years ago), seawater sulfate concentrations were much lower than today, yet open questions frustrate the translation of modern measurements of sulfur isotope fractionations into estimates of Archean seawater sulfate concentrations. In the water column of Lake Matano, Indonesia, a low-sulfate analog for the Archean ocean, we find large (>20 per mil) sulfur isotope fractionations between sulfate and sulfide, but the underlying sediment sulfides preserve a muted range of δ^(34)S values. Using models informed by sulfur cycling in Lake Matano, we infer Archean seawater sulfate concentrations of less than 2.5 micromolar. At these low concentrations, marine sulfate residence times were likely 10^3 to 10^4 years, and sulfate scarcity would have shaped early global biogeochemical cycles, possibly restricting biological productivity in Archean oceans.

Additional Information

© 2014 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received for publication 21 July 2014. Accepted for publication 3 October 2014. We thank A. Sturm and C. Henny for help with fieldwork. S. Poulton provided sediment δ^(34)S data. A. Hefford helped compile Archean S-isotope data. Funding to S.A.C. was provided by an Agouron Institute Geobiology Fellowship and a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship. Additional funding was provided by the Danish National Research Foundation (grant no. DNRF53) and the European Research Council. All data are available in the supplementary materials.

Attached Files

Supplemental Material - 1258966_Data_S1.xlsx

Supplemental Material - Crowe.SM.pdf

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
50324
DOI
10.1126/science.1258966
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20141009-162752745

Related works

Describes
10.1126/science.1258966 (DOI)

Funding

Agouron Institute
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Danish National Research Foundation
DNRF53
European Research Council (ERC)

Dates

Created
2014-11-06
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-10
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS)