Biomarkers from Huronian oil-bearing fluid inclusions: An uncontaminated record of life before the Great Oxidation Event
- 1 January 2006
- journal article
- Published by Geological Society of America in Geology
- Vol. 34 (6) , 437
- https://doi.org/10.1130/g22360.1
Abstract
We report detailed molecular geochemistry of oil-bearing fluid inclusions from a ca. 2.45 Ga fluvial metaconglomerate of the Matinenda Formation at Elliot Lake, Canada. The oil, most likely derived from the conformably overlying McKim Formation, was trapped in quartz and feldspar during diagenesis and early metamorphism of the host rock, probably before ca. 2.2 Ga. The presence of abundant biomarkers for cyanobacteria and eukaryotes derived from and trapped in rocks deposited before the Great Oxidation Event is consistent with an earlier evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis than previously thought and suggests that some aquatic settings had become sufficiently oxygenated for sterol biosynthesis by this time. It also implies that eukaryotes survived several extreme climatic events, including the Paleoproterozoic “snowball Earth” glaciations. The extraction of biomarker molecules from Paleoproterozoic oil-bearing fluid inclusions thus establishes a new method, using low detection limits and system blank levels, to trace evolution of life through Earth's early history that avoids the potential contamination problems affecting shale-hosted hydrocarbons.4 page(sKeywords
This publication has 24 references indexed in Scilit:
- Biomarker evidence for green and purple sulphur bacteria in a stratified Palaeoproterozoic seaNature, 2005
- The Paleoproterozoic snowball Earth: A climate disaster triggered by the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesisProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2005
- A negative fold test on the Lorrain Formation of the Huronian Supergroup: Uncertainty on the paleolatitude of the Paleoproterozoic Gowganda glaciation and implications for the great oxygenation eventEarth and Planetary Science Letters, 2005
- A reconstruction of Archean biological diversity based on molecular fossils from the 2.78 to 2.45 billion-year-old Mount Bruce Supergroup, Hamersley Basin, Western AustraliaGeochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 2003
- Composition and syngeneity of molecular fossils from the 2.78 to 2.45 billion-year-old Mount Bruce Supergroup, Pilbara Craton, Western AustraliaGeochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 2003
- Oil-bearing CO2–CH4–H2O fluid inclusions: oil survival since the Palaeoproterozoic after high temperature entrapmentChemical Geology, 2003
- Biomarkers, brines, and oil in the Mesoproterozoic, Roper Superbasin, AustraliaGeology, 2003
- The snowball Earth hypothesis: testing the limits of global changeTerra Nova, 2002
- Archean Molecular Fossils and the Early Rise of EukaryotesScience, 1999
- Relative importance of thermodynamic and kinetic processes in governing the chemical and isotopic composition of carbon gases in high-heatflow sedimentary basinsGeochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 1997