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Science 28 September 2007:
Vol. 317. no. 5846, pp. 1900 - 1903
DOI: 10.1126/science.1138700
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Reports

Late Archean Biospheric Oxygenation and Atmospheric Evolution

Alan J. Kaufman,1* David T. Johnston,1 James Farquhar,1 Andrew L. Masterson,1 Timothy W. Lyons,2 Steve Bates,2 Ariel D. Anbar,3,4 Gail L. Arnold,3 Jessica Garvin,5 Roger Buick5

High-resolution geochemical analyses of organic-rich shale and carbonate through the 2500 million-year-old Mount McRae Shale in the Hamersley Basin of northwestern Australia record changes in both the oxidation state of the surface ocean and the atmospheric composition. The Mount McRae record of sulfur isotopes captures the widespread and possibly permanent activation of the oxidative sulfur cycle for perhaps the first time in Earth's history. The correlation of the time-series sulfur isotope signals in northwestern Australia with equivalent strata from South Africa suggests that changes in the exogenic sulfur cycle recorded in marine sediments were global in scope and were linked to atmospheric evolution. The data suggest that oxygenation of the surface ocean preceded pervasive and persistent atmospheric oxygenation by 50 million years or more.

1 Departments of Geology and Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742–4211, USA.
2 Department of Earth Sciences, University of California at Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521–0423, USA.
3 School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287–1404, USA.
4 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287–1404, USA.
5 Department of Earth and Space Sciences and Astrobiology Program, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195–1310, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: kaufman{at}geol.umd.edu

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Science 323, 1045-1048
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Phil Trans R Soc B 363, 2731-2743
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Science 317, 1903-1906
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