MICROPALEONTOLOGY OF THE LOWER MESOPROTEROZOIC ROPER GROUP, AUSTRALIA, AND IMPLICATIONS FOR EARLY EUKARYOTIC EVOLUTION

ELiTE: Early Life Traces, Evolution, and Implications for Astrobiolog

Anomalous Carbonate Precipitates: Is the Precambrian the Key to the Permian?

Late Permian reefs of the Capitan complex, west Texas; the Magnesian Limestone, England; Chuenmuping reef, south China; and elsewhere contain anomalously large volumes of aragonite and calcite marine cements and seafloor crusts, as well as abundant microbial precipitates. These components strongly influenced reef growth and may have been responsible for the construction of rigid, open reefal frames in which bryozoans and sponges became encrusted and structurally reinforced. In some cases, such as the upper biostrome of the Magnesian Limestone, precipitated microbialites and inorganic crusts were the primary constituents of the reef core. These microbial and inorganic reefs do not have modern marine counterparts; on the contrary, their textures and genesis are best understood through comparison with the older rock record, particularly that of the early Precambrian. Early Precambrian reefal facies are interpreted to have formed in a stratified ocean with anoxic deep waters enriched in carbonate alkalinity. Upwelling mixed deep and surface waters, resulting in massive seafloor precipitation of aragonite and calcite. During Mesoproterozoic and early Neoproterozoic time, the ocean became more fully oxidized, and seafloor carbonate precipitation was significantly reduced. However, during the late Neoproterozoic, sizeable volumes of deep ocean water once again became anoxic for protracted intervals; the distinctive "cap carbonates" found above Neoproterozoic tillites attest to renewed upwelling of anoxic bottom water enriched in carbonate alkalinity and ^(12)C. Anomalous late Permian seafloor precipitates are interpreted as the product, at least in part, of similar processes. Massive carbonate precipitation was favored by: 1) reduced shelf space for carbonate precipitation, 2) increased flux of Ca to the oceans during increased continental erosion, 3) deep basinal anoxia that generated upwelling waters with elevated alkalinities, and 4) further evolution of ocean water in the restricted Delaware, Zechstein, and other basins. Temporal coincidence of these processes resulted in surface seawater that was greatly supersaturated by Phanerozoic standards and whose only precedents occurred in Precambrian oceans

An iron shuttle for deepwater silica in Late Archean and early Paleoproterozoic iron formation

Iron formations are typically thinly bedded or laminated sedimentary rocks containing 15% or more of iron and a large proportion of silica (commonly > 40%). In the ca. 2590-2460 Ma Campbellrand-Kuruman Complex, Transvaal Supergroup, South Africa, iron formation occurs as a sediment-starved deepwater facies distal to carbonates and shales. Iron minerals, primarily siderite, define the lamination. The silica primarily occurs as thin beds and nodules of diagenetic chert (now microcrystalline quartz), filling pore space and replacing iron formation minerals and co-occurring deepwater lithologies. Mechanisms proposed to explain precipitation of the iron component of iron formation include photosynthetic oxygen production, anoxygenic photosynthesis, abiotic photochemistry, and chemoautotrophy using Fe(II) as an electron donor. The origin and mechanism of silica precipitation in these deposits have received less attention. Here we present a conceptual model of iron formation that offers insight into the deposition of silica. The model hinges on the proclivity of dissolved silica to adsorb onto the hydrous surfaces of ferric oxides. Soluble ferrous iron is oxidized in the surface ocean to form ferric hydroxides, which precipitate. Fe(OH)_3 binds silica and sinks from the surface ocean along with organic matter, shuttling silica to basinal waters and sediments. Fe(III) respiration in the sediments returns the majority of iron to the water column but also generates considerable alkalinity in pore waters, driving precipitation of siderite from Fe2+ and respiration-influenced CO2. Silica liberated during iron reduction becomes concentrated in pore fluids and is ultimately precipitated as diagenetic mineral phases. This model explains many of the mineralogical, textural, and environmental features of Late Archean and earliest Paleo-proterozoic iron formation

Grazers and Phytoplankton Growth in the Oceans: an Experimental and Evolutionary Perspective

The taxonomic composition of phytoplankton responsible for primary production on continental shelves has changed episodically through Earth history. Geological correlations suggest that major changes in phytoplankton composition correspond in time to changes in grazing and seawater chemistry. Testing hypotheses that arise from these correlations requires experimentation, and so we carried out a series of experiments in which selected phytoplankton species were grown in treatments that differed with respect to the presence or absence of grazers as well as seawater chemistry. Both protistan (Euplotes sp.) and microarthropod (Acartia tonsa) grazers changed the growth dynamics and biochemical composition of the green alga Tetraselmis suecica, the diatom Thalassiosira weissflogii, and the cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp., increasing the specific growth rate and palatability of the eukaryotic algae, while decreasing or leaving unchanged both parameters in the cyanobacteria. Synechococcus (especially) and Thalassiosira produced toxins effective against the copepod, but ciliate growth was unaffected. Acartia induced a 4-6 fold increase of Si cell quota in the diatom, but Euplotes had no similar effect. The differential growth responses of the eukaryotic algae and cyanobacteria to ciliate grazing may help to explain the apparently coeval radiation of eukaryophagic protists and rise of eukaryotes to ecological prominence as primary producers in Neoproterozoic oceans. The experimental results suggest that phytoplankton responses to the later radiation of microarthropod grazers were clade-specific, and included changes in growth dynamics, toxin synthesis, encystment, and (in diatoms) enhanced Si uptake

Stratigraphic and Ecologic Implications of Late Precambrian Microfossils from Utah

Abundant and well preserved microfossils have been discovered in black shales and siltstones of the glaciogenic upper Precambrian Mineral Fork Formation near Salt Lake City, Utah. The rocks are interpreted to have been deposited close to an ice margin in a shallow, restricted marine embayment during glacial retreat. Several distinct morphotypes are discernible, but following Moorman (1974), we interpret most of these as stages in the life cycle of a single planktonic, endosporulating alga, Bavlinella faveolata (Shepeleva) Vidal. The low taxonomic diversity of this assemblage, coupled with the large population size and almost complete dominance by Bavlinella, suggests an ecologically stressed environment. The source of this stress was probably the melting glacier. On the basis of stratigraphic position and lithological correlation with a radiometrically dated sequence in Washington, the Mineral Fork Formation has been considered to be about 800 m.y. old; however, most well dated occurrences of Bavlinella are in rocks of Vendian (650-570 m.y.) age. The presence of Bavlinella faveolata in Mineral Fork strata raises significant questions concerning both the stratigraphic range of this presumed Vendian index fossil and the timing of Late Precambrian glaciation in the North American Cordillera

Carbonates in Skeleton-poor Seas: New Insights From Cambrian and Ordovician Strata of Laurentia

Calcareous skeletons evolved as part of the greater Ediacaran–Cambrian diversification of marine animals. Skeletons did not become permanent, globally important sources of carbonate sediment, however, until the Ordovician radiation. Representative carbonate facies in a Series 3 (510–501 Ma) Cambrian to Tremadocian succession from western Newfoundland, Canada, and Ordovician successions from the Ibex area, Utah, USA, show that, on average, Cambrian and Tremadocian carbonates contain much less skeletal material than do post-Tremadocian sediments. Petrographic point counts of skeletal abundance within facies and proportional facies abundance in measured sections suggest that later Cambrian successions contain on average <5% skeletal material by volume, whereas the skeletal content of post-Tremadocian Ordovician sections is closer to ~15%. A compilation of carbonate stratigraphic sections from across Laurentia confirms that post-Tremadocian increase in skeletal content is a general pattern and not unique to the two basins studied. The long interval (~40 myr) between the initial Cambrian appearance of carbonate skeletons and the subsequent Ordovician diversification of heavily skeletonized organisms provides an important perspective on the Ordovician radiation. Geochemical data increasingly support the hypothesis that later Cambrian oceans were warm and, in subsurface water masses, commonly dysoxic to anoxic. We suggest that surface waters in such oceans would have been characterized by relatively low saturation states for calcite and aragonite. Mid-Ordovician cooling would have raised oxygen concentrations in subsurface water masses, establishing more highly oversaturated surface waters. If correct, these links could provide a proximal trigger for the renewed radiation of heavily skeletonized invertebrates and algae

A bottom-up perspective on ecosystem change in Mesozoic oceans

Mesozoic and Early Cenozoic marine animals across multiple phyla record secular trends in morphology, environmental distribution, and inferred behaviour that are parsimoniously explained in terms of increased selection pressure from durophagous predators. Another systemic change in Mesozoic marine ecosystems, less widely appreciated than the first, may help to explain the observed animal record. Fossils, biomarker molecules, and molecular clocks indicate a major shift in phytoplankton composition, as mixotrophic dinoflagellates, coccolithophorids and, later, diatoms radiated across shelves. Models originally developed to probe the ecology and biogeography of modern phytoplankton enable us to evaluate the ecosystem consequences of these phytoplankton radiations. In particular, our models suggest that the radiation of mixotrophic dinoflagellates and the subsequent diversification of marine diatoms would have accelerated the transfer of primary production upward into larger size classes and higher trophic levels. Thus, phytoplankton evolution provides a mechanism capable of facilitating the observed evolutionary shift in Mesozoic marine animals