The triple oxygen isotope composition of marine sulfate and 130 million years of microbial control.

ABSTRACT: The triple oxygen isotope composition (Δ'¹⁷O) of sulfate minerals is widely used to constrain ancient atmospheric pO₂/pCO₂ and rates of gross primary production. The utility of this tool is based on a model that sulfate oxygen carries an isotope fingerprint of tropospheric O₂ incorporated through oxidative weathering of reduced sulfur minerals, particularly pyrite. Work to date has targeted Proterozoic environments (2.5 billion to 0.542 billion years ago) where large isotope anomalies persist; younger timescale records, which would ground ancient environmental interpretation in what we know from modern Earth, are lacking. Here we present a high-resolution record of the [Formula: see text]O and Δ'¹⁷O in marine sulfate for

SUBMITTER: Waldeck AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9351482 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature