A Stratified Redox Model for the Ediacaran Ocean
Abstract
The Ediacaran Period (635 to 542 million years ago) was a time of fundamental environmental and evolutionary change, culminating in the first appearance of macroscopic animals. Here, we present a detailed spatial and temporal record of Ediacaran ocean chemistry for the Doushantuo Formation in the Nanhua Basin, South China. We find evidence for a metastable zone of euxinic (anoxic and sulfidic) waters impinging on the continental shelf and sandwiched within ferruginous [Fe(II)-enriched] deep waters. A stratified ocean with coeval oxic, sulfidic, and ferruginous zones, favored by overall low oceanic sulfate concentrations, was maintained dynamically throughout the Ediacaran Period. Our model reconciles seemingly conflicting geochemical redox conditions proposed previously for Ediacaran deep oceans and helps to explain the patchy temporal record of early metazoan fossils.
Additional Information
© 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received 23 September 2009; accepted 27 January 2010. Published online 11 February 2010. We are extremely grateful to R. Raiswell, S. Bates, W. Gilhooly, B. Gill, J. Owens, A. Khong, P. Marenco, N. Planavsky, C. Reinhard, M. Rohrssen, C. Scott, S. Severmann, J. Huang, L. Feng, H. Chang, and Q. Zhang for laboratory and field assistance and helpful discussions. The NSF Earth Sciences program (grant EAR-0720362 to G.D.L. and T.W.L. and grant EAR-0719493 to A.L.S.), National Science Foundation of China Fund (grant 40532012 to X.C.), the Chinese Academy of Sciences Fund (grant KZCX3-SW-141 to X.C.), the NASA Astrobiology Institute, and the Agouron Institute provided funding.Attached Files
Supplemental Material - 1.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 17933
- DOI
- 10.1126/science.1182369
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20100412-095415054
- NSF
- EAR-0720362
- NSF
- EAR-0719493
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- 40532012
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- KZCX3-SW-141
- NASA
- Agouron Institute
- Created
-
2010-04-28Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-08Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences