Anomalous fractionation of mercury isotopes in the Late Archean atmosphere

Aubrey Lea Zerkle, Runsheng Yin, Chaoyue Chen, Xiangdong Li, Gareth Izon, Stephen Grasby

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Earth’s surface underwent a dramatic transition ~2.3 billion years ago when atmospheric oxygen first accumulated during the Great Oxidation Event, but the detailed composition of the reducing early atmosphere is not well known. Here we develop mercury (Hg) stable isotopes as a proxy for paleoatmospheric chemistry and use Hg isotope data from 2.5 billion-year-old sedimentary rocks to examine changes in the Late Archean atmosphere immediately prior to the Great Oxidation Event. These sediments preserve evidence of strong photochemical transformations of mercury in the absence of molecular oxygen. In addition, these geochemical records combined with previously published multi-proxy data support a vital role for methane in Earth’s early atmosphere.
Original languageEnglish
Article number1709
Number of pages9
JournalNature Communications
Volume11
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 Apr 2020

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