An authigenic origin for Precambrian greenalite: Implications for iron formation and the chemistry of ancient seawater

Tosca, Nicholas J.; Guggenheim, Stephen; Pufahl, Peir K.

doi:10.1130/b31339.1

Cited by 183 publications

(170 citation statements)

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“…They suggested that elevated Fe(II) concentrations could have provided an external environmental stress on cyanobacterial populations, leading to increased production of intracellular reactive oxygen species, and attenuated growth rates and oxygen production. The potential for Fe(II) toxicity represents a previously unrecognised environmental limitation of planktonic phototrophs, and could conceivably have been important given estimates for marine Fe(II) concentrations from the low µM to mM range (e.g., Holland, 1984;Czaja et al, 2012;Tosca et al, 2016). As explored above, photoferrotrophs are likely to drive quantitative Fe(II) oxidation in an upwelling water mass in some, but not all, marine environments.…”

Section: Iron Formations Primary Productivity and Atmospheric Oxygementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, the laboratory experiments by Tosca et al (2016), who examined the solubility of freshly precipitated greenalite suggest that its precipitation requires a pH of 7.75-8.3, values that are at odds with those predicted for Archaean seawater (e.g., Grotzinger and Kasting, 1993;Blätter et al, 2016;Halevy and Bachan, 2017). However, it is important to note that porewater pH in systems dominated by DIR will be in the range expected for greenalite precipitation, and that the petrographic evidence outlined above could also be consistent with early diagenetic precipitation of greenalite.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

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Iron formations: A global record of Neoarchaean to Palaeoproterozoic environmental history

Konhauser

Planavsky

Hardisty

et al. 2017

Earth-Science Reviews

379

257

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Section: Iron Formations Primary Productivity and Atmospheric Oxygementioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 98%

Iron formations: A global record of Neoarchaean to Palaeoproterozoic environmental history

Konhauser

Planavsky

Hardisty

et al. 2017

Earth-Science Reviews

379

257

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“…Brucite (Mg[OH] 2 ) is a major initial component of Lost City mounds, owing to the high concentration of Mg in the present-day ocean, whereas Hadean mounds would have had an iron-dominated mineralogical composition. The Hadean ocean was carbonic and rich in iron and other transition metals, so the porous precipitate mounds would have comprised amorphous to microcrystalline brucite-structured iron oxyhydroxides or green rusts (e.g., *Fe II 4 Fe III 2 (OH) 12 [CO 3 ] 3H 2 O) along with the iron sulfides mackinawite and greigite, dosed with nickel, cobalt, and molybdenum (Russell and Hall, 1997;Génin et al, 2005Génin et al, , 2006Mloszewska et al, 2012;Nitschke and Russell, 2013;Russell et al, 2014;White et al, 2015;Tosca et al, 2016;Halevy et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nitrogen Oxides in Early Earth's Atmosphere as Electron Acceptors for Life's Emergence

et al. 2017

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We quantify the amount of nitrogen oxides (NOx) produced through lightning and photochemical processes in the Hadean atmosphere to be available in the Hadean ocean for the emergence of life. Atmospherically generated nitrate (NO 3 -) and nitrite (NO 2 -) are the most attractive high-potential electron acceptors for pulling and enabling crucial redox reactions of autotrophic metabolic pathways at submarine alkaline hydrothermal vents. The Hadean atmosphere, dominated by CO 2 and N 2 , will produce nitric oxide (NO) when shocked by lightning. Photochemical reactions involving NO and H 2 O vapor will then produce acids such as HNO, HNO 2 , HNO 3 , and HO 2 NO 2 that rain into the ocean. There, they dissociate into or react to form nitrate and nitrite. We present new calculations based on a novel combination of early-Earth global climate model and photochemical modeling, and we predict the flux of NOx to the Hadean ocean. In our 0.1-, 1-, and 10-bar pCO 2 models, we calculate the NOx delivery to be 2.4 · 10 . After only tens of thousands to tens of millions of years, these NOx fluxes are expected to produce sufficient (micromolar) ocean concentrations of high-potential electron acceptors for the emergence of life.

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“…[83,84,85] Green rust would only have precipitated from this acidulous ocean on meeting the alkaline hydrothermal fluids. [7,76,81,82,85,86,87,88,89,90] On burial, this green rust converted to the hematite and magnetite constituting the thinly laminated banded iron formations (BIFs) comparable to those we see today. [89,90] With a specific gravity of around 5 and interlayered with basalt/komatiite and chert with specific gravities of ~2.9 and 2.5 respectively, the Hadean crust was 'doomed' to founder back into the hot, dry mantle, so explaining its absence.…”

Section: The Hadean Water Worldmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…This iron had remained supersaturated until interfacing alkaline fluids. [83,89] A major source of such alkaline waters would have been "Lost City-type" moderate temperature alkaline springs. ( Figure 1).…”

Section: The Precipitate Mound At the Submarine Alkaline Ventmentioning

confidence: 99%

Green Rust: The Simple Organizing ‘Seed’ of All Life?  <strong> </strong>

Russell

2018

Preprint

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The most important problem of synthetic biology is…the reduction of carbonic acid. and Without the idea of spontaneous generation and a physical theory of life, the doctrine of evolution is a mutilated hypothesis without unity or cohesion.[1] Leduc, [1]Abstract: Korenaga and coworkers present evidence to suggest that 4.3 billion years ago the Earth's mantle was dry and water filled the ocean to twice its present volume.[2] CO2 was constantly exhaled during the mafic to ultramafic volcanic activity associated with magmatic plumes that produced the thick, dense and relatively stable oceanic crust. In that setting two distinct major types of sub-marine hydrothermal vents were active: ~400°C acidic springs whose effluents bore vast quantities of iron into the ocean, and ~120°C, highly alkaline and reduced vents exhaling from the cooler, serpentinizing crust at some distance from the heads of the plumes. When encountering the alkaline effluents, the iron from the plume head vents precipitated out forming mounds likely surrounded by voluminous exhalative deposits similar to the banded iron formations known from the Archean. These mounds and the surrounding sediments likely comprising nanocrysts of the variable valence FeII/FeIII oxyhydroxide, green rust. The precipitation of green rust, along with subsidiary iron sulfides and minor concentrations of Ni, Co and Mo in the environment at the alkaline springs may have established both the key bio-syntonic disequilibria, and the means to properly make use of them -those needed to drive the essential inanimate-to-animate transitions that launched life. In the submarine alkaline vent model for the emergence of life specifically it is first suggested that the redox-flexible green rust microcrysts spontaneously formed precipitated barriers to the complete mixing of carbonic ocean and alkaline hydrothermal fluids, barriers that created and maintained steep ionic disequilibria; and second, that the hydrous interlayers of green rust acted as 'engines' that were powered by those ionic disequilibria and drove essential endergonic reactions. There, aided by sulfides and trace elements acting as catalytic promoters and electron transfer agents, nitrate could be reduced to ammonia and carbon dioxide to formate, while methane may have been oxidized to methyl and formyl groups. Acetate and higher carboxylic acids could then have been produced from these C1 molecules and aminated to amino acids, and thence oligomerized to offer peptide nests to phosphate and iron sulfides and secreted to form primitive amyloid-bounded structures, leading conceivably to protocells.

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An authigenic origin for Precambrian greenalite: Implications for iron formation and the chemistry of ancient seawater

Cited by 183 publications

References 158 publications

Iron formations: A global record of Neoarchaean to Palaeoproterozoic environmental history

Iron formations: A global record of Neoarchaean to Palaeoproterozoic environmental history

Nitrogen Oxides in Early Earth's Atmosphere as Electron Acceptors for Life's Emergence

Green Rust: The Simple Organizing ‘Seed’ of All Life?  <strong> </strong>

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An authigenic origin for Precambrian greenalite: Implications for iron formation and the chemistry of ancient seawater

Cited by 183 publications

References 158 publications

Iron formations: A global record of Neoarchaean to Palaeoproterozoic environmental history

Iron formations: A global record of Neoarchaean to Palaeoproterozoic environmental history

Nitrogen Oxides in Early Earth's Atmosphere as Electron Acceptors for Life's Emergence

Green Rust: The Simple Organizing &lsquo;Seed&rsquo; of All Life?&nbsp;&nbsp;<strong> </strong>

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Green Rust: The Simple Organizing ‘Seed’ of All Life? <strong> </strong>