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Geochemical evidence for widespread euxinia in the Later Cambrian ocean

Naturevolume 469, pages80–83 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Widespread anoxia in the ocean is frequently invoked as a primary driver of mass extinction as well as a long-term inhibitor of evolutionary radiation on early Earth. In recent biogeochemical studies it has been hypothesized that oxygen deficiency was widespread in subsurface water masses of later Cambrian oceans1,2, possibly influencing evolutionary events during this time1,2,3. Physical evidence of widespread anoxia in Cambrian oceans has remained elusive and thus its potential relationship to the palaeontological record remains largely unexplored. Here we present sulphur isotope records from six globally distributed stratigraphic sections of later Cambrian marine rocks (about 499 million years old). We find a positive sulphur isotope excursion in phase with the Steptoean Positive Carbon Isotope Excursion (SPICE), a large and rapid excursion in the marine carbon isotope record, which is thought to be indicative of a global carbon cycle perturbation4,5. Numerical box modelling of the paired carbon sulphur isotope data indicates that these isotope shifts reflect transient increases in the burial of organic carbon and pyrite sulphur in sediments deposited under large-scale anoxic and sulphidic (euxinic) conditions. Independently, molybdenum abundances in a coeval black shale point convincingly to the transient spread of anoxia. These results identify the SPICE interval as the best characterized ocean anoxic event in the pre-Mesozoic ocean and an extreme example of oxygen deficiency in the later Cambrian ocean. Thus, a redox structure similar to those in Proterozoic oceans6,7,8 may have persisted or returned in the oceans of the early Phanerozoic eon. Indeed, the environmental challenges presented by widespread anoxia may have been a prevalent if not dominant influence on animal evolution in Cambrian oceans.

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Figure 1:Palaeo-reconstruction of the later Cambrian Earth.
Figure 2:Chemostratigraphies of the SPICE carbonate stratigraphic sections.
Figure 3:Chemostratigraphy from the Andrarum no. 3 Core of the Alum Shale, Sweden (Baltica).
Figure 4:Examples of the modelled carbon and sulphur isotope composition of the ocean during the SPICE.

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Acknowledgements

NSF-EAR and NASA Astrobiology provided funding. Fieldwork and sample collection were aided by S. Bates, L. Bongers, H. Dayton, S. Mason, P. McGoldrick, J. Owens, C. Seeger and E. Starbuck. Sulphur isotope analyses were aided by S. Bates and W. Gilhooly. We thank P. Ahlberg and M. Eriksson for allowing access to the Andrarum no. 3 drill core. Discussions with G. Love, N. Hughes, D. Johnston, P. Cohen and T. Dahl improved the manuscript.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Benjamin C. Gill

    Present address: Present address: Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences Harvard University, 20 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Sciences, University of California, 900 University Avenue, Riverside, 92521, California, USA

    Benjamin C. Gill & Timothy W. Lyons

  2. Department of Geological Sciences, Indiana University-Bloomington, 1001 East 10th Street, Bloomington, 47405-1405, Indiana, USA

    Seth A. Young

  3. Department of Geosciences, Penn State University, 503 Deike Building, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA

    Lee R. Kump

  4. Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    Andrew H. Knoll

  5. School of Earth Science, The Ohio State University, 275 Mendenhall Laboratory, 125 South Oval Mall, Columbus, 43210, Ohio, USA

    Matthew R. Saltzman

Authors
  1. Benjamin C. Gill
  2. Timothy W. Lyons
  3. Seth A. Young
  4. Lee R. Kump
  5. Andrew H. Knoll
  6. Matthew R. Saltzman

Contributions

B.C.G., T.W.L., M.R.S. and S.A.Y. collected samples used in this study. B.C.G. did the chemical analyses and collected mass spectrometer and ICP-MS data. B.C.G. and L.R.K. built the geochemical box model. B.C.G. wrote the manuscript, with contributions from T.W.L., A.H.K. and L.R.K. All the authors contributed to discussions and interpretations of the data.

Corresponding author

Correspondence toBenjamin C. Gill.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Samples and Geological Settings, Supplementary Methods, additional references, Supplementary Tables 1-6 and Supplementary Figures 1-14 with legends. (PDF 2979 kb)

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Gill, B., Lyons, T., Young, S.et al. Geochemical evidence for widespread euxinia in the Later Cambrian ocean.Nature469, 80–83 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09700

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Editorial Summary

Oxygen shortage in the ancient oceans

It has been suggested that the Cambrian ocean was oxygen deficient, but physical evidence for widespread anoxia has been lacking. Gillet al. present sulphur isotope data from Cambrian rocks at six different locations around the world and find a positive sulphur isotope excursion in phase with a large excursion in the marine carbon isotope record, which is thought to be indicative of a global carbon cycle perturbation at the time. A prolonged period of anoxia during the Cambrian may explain the previously enigmatic peculiarities seen in the fossil record.

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Toxic Cambrian oceans

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