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Earth’s early O2 cycle suppressed by primitive continents

An Author Correction to this article was published on 14 November 2017

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Abstract

Free oxygen began to accumulate in Earth’s surface environments between 3.0 and 2.4 billion years ago. Links between oxygenation and changes in the composition of continental crust during this time are suspected, but have been difficult to demonstrate. Here we constrain the average composition of the exposed continental crust since 3.7 billion years ago by compiling records of the Cr/U ratio of terrigenous sediments. The resulting record is consistent with a predominantly mafic crust prior to 3.0 billion years ago, followed by a 500- to 700-million-year transition to a crust of modern andesitic composition. Olivine and other Mg-rich minerals in the mafic Archaean crust formed serpentine minerals upon hydration, continuously releasing O2-scavenging agents such as dihydrogen, hydrogen sulfide and methane to the environment. Temporally, the decline in mafic crust capable of such process coincides with the first accumulation of O2 in the oceans, and subsequently the atmosphere. We therefore suggest that Earth’s early O2 cycle was ultimately limited by the composition of the exposed upper crust, and remained underdeveloped until modern andesitic continents emerged.

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Figure 1: Time evolution of oxygenation and crustal evolution.
Figure 2: Cr/U of major terrestrial reservoirs and rock types.

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  • 14 November 2017

    In the Supplementary Information file originally published, notes were mistakenly omitted from Supplementary Table 4. This has now been corrected.

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Acknowledgements

Careful and constructive comments from P. R. D. Mason and M. Tang, as well as fruitful discussions with E. Kooijman, allowed us to improve the quality of the manuscript substantially. The research was financially supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Discovery Grant RGPIN-2015-04080 to M.A.S.

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M.A.S. conceived the concepts, compiled and evaluated all data, designed the figures, and wrote the first draft manuscript. K.M. provided crucial topical insight and co-wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Matthijs A. Smit.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Smit, M., Mezger, K. Earth’s early O2 cycle suppressed by primitive continents. Nature Geosci 10, 788–792 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo3030

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