A Stratified Redox Model for the Ediacaran Ocean

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) - Tập 328 Số 5974 - Trang 80-83 - 2010
Chao Li1, Gordon D. Love1, Timothy W. Lyons1, David A. Fike2, Alex L. Sessions3, Xuelei Chu4
1Department of Earth Sciences University of California Riverside, CA 92521 USA
2Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
3Department of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
4State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China

Tóm tắt

Oceans Before the Dawn Although the fossil record shows a clear explosion of animal diversity in the oceans at the beginning of the Cambrian period (∼542 million years ago), the evolutionary pressures driving this increase in diversity remain unclear. The likely scenario involves drastic changes in the distribution of oxygen in ocean basins, but global glaciations and poor preservation of rocks from this time often prevent a clear picture of global ecology before the dawn of animal life. Li et al. (p. 80 , published online 11 February; see the Perspective by Narbonne ) characterized the geochemical makeup of sedimentary rocks from south China that indicate alternating layers of sulfide- and iron-rich (i.e., sulfate-limited) anoxic waters in the several million years leading up to the Cambrian. These conditions may have set the stage for an eventual increase in productivity of photosynthetic life that oxygenated the oceans and allowed for rapid animal evolution.

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American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Tập 328 Số 5974

80-83

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