Hydrothermal seawater eutrophication triggered local macrobiological experimentation in the 2100 Ma Paleoproterozoic Francevillian sub-basin

Chi Fru, Ernest ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2673-0565, Aubineau, Jérémie, Bankole, Olabode, Ghnahalla, Mohamed, Tamehe, Landry Soh and El Albani, Abderrazak 2024. Hydrothermal seawater eutrophication triggered local macrobiological experimentation in the 2100 Ma Paleoproterozoic Francevillian sub-basin. Precambrian Research 409 , 107453. 10.1016/j.precamres.2024.107453 Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

It is thought that the global predominance of small-size unicellular prokaryotic life in the oceans until the emergence of large-size multicellular organisms to ecological dominance in the Ediacaran Ocean after 635 million years ago (Ma), was partly constrained by paleo-dynamic nutrient limitation, with phosphorus (P) being the principal limiting resource. Here we couple an episode of intense submarine hydrothermal alteration of a nutrient-rich seafloor reservoir to the collision of the Congo-São Francisco cratons at ∼2100 Ma, to unravel a paleo-geodynamic incident of seawater P enrichment in the Paleoproterozoic Francevillian sub-basin. We propose that this previously unrecognized local pulse in dissolved seawater P concentration, of comparable magnitude to Ediacaran seawater levels, set the stage for Earth’s earliest biospheric experimentation towards macrobiological complexity ∼2100 million years ago.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Earth and Environmental Sciences
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0301-9268
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	10 June 2024
Date of Acceptance:	25 May 2024
Last Modified:	19 Jun 2024 19:34
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/169710

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