Transient fertilization of a post-Sturtian Snowball ocean margin with dissolved phosphate by clay minerals

Chi Fru, Ernest ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2673-0565, Al Bahri, Jalila, Brosson, Christophe, Bankole, Olabode, Aubineau, Jérémie, El Albani, Abderrazzak, Nederbragt, Alexandra, Oldroyd, Anthony, Skelton, Alasdair, Lowhagen, Linda, Webster, David, Fantong, Wilson Y., Mills, Benjamin J. W., Alcott, Lewis J., Konhauser, Kurt O. and Lyons, Timothy W. 2023. Transient fertilization of a post-Sturtian Snowball ocean margin with dissolved phosphate by clay minerals. Nature Communications 14 (1) , 8418. 10.1038/s41467-023-44240-9

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Abstract

Marine sedimentary rocks deposited across the Neoproterozoic Cryogenian Snowball interval, ~720-635 million years ago, suggest that post-Snowball fertilization of shallow continental margin seawater with phosphorus accelerated marine primary productivity, ocean-atmosphere oxygenation, and ultimately the rise of animals. However, the mechanisms that sourced and delivered bioavailable phosphate from land to the ocean are not fully understood. Here we demonstrate a causal relationship between clay mineral production by the melting Sturtian Snowball ice sheets and a short-lived increase in seawater phosphate bioavailability by at least 20-fold and oxygenation of an immediate post-Sturtian Snowball ocean margin. Bulk primary sediment inputs and inferred dissolved seawater phosphate dynamics point to a relatively low marine phosphate inventory that limited marine primary productivity and seawater oxygenation before the Sturtian glaciation, and again in the later stages of the succeeding interglacial greenhouse interval.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Earth and Environmental Sciences
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Type: open-access
Publisher:	Nature Research
ISSN:	2041-1723
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	20 December 2023
Date of Acceptance:	5 December 2023
Last Modified:	20 Dec 2023 10:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/164989

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