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Science 14 September 2007:
Vol. 317. no. 5844, pp. 1534 - 1537
DOI: 10.1126/science.1145861
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Reports

Early Archaean Microorganisms Preferred Elemental Sulfur, Not Sulfate

Pascal Philippot,1* Mark Van Zuilen,1 Kevin Lepot,1 Christophe Thomazo,1 James Farquhar,2 Martin J. Van Kranendonk3

Microscopic sulfides with low 34S/32S ratios in marine sulfate deposits from the 3490-million-yearold Dresser Formation, Australia, have been interpreted as evidence for the presence of early sulfate-reducing organisms on Earth. We show that these microscopic sulfides have a mass-independently fractionated sulfur isotopic anomaly ({Delta}33S) that differs from that of their host sulfate (barite). These microscopic sulfides could not have been produced by sulfate-reducing microbes, nor by abiologic processes that involve reduction of sulfate. Instead, we interpret the combined negative {delta}34S and positive {Delta}33S signature of these microscopic sulfides as evidence for the early existence of organisms that disproportionate elemental sulfur.

1 Equipe Géobiosphère Actuelle et Primitive, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, CNRS and Université Denis Diderot, 4 place Jussieu, 75005 Paris cedex, France.
2 Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, Department of Geology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
3 Geological Survey of Western Australia, 100 Plain Street, East Perth, WA 6004, Australia.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: philippot{at}ipgp.jussieu.fr

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