title: Rapid oxygenation of Earth's atmosphere 2.33 billion years ago.
abstract: Molecular oxygen (O2) is, and has been, a primary driver of biological evolution and shapes the contemporary landscape of Earth's biogeochemical cycles. Although "whiffs" of oxygen have been documented in the Archean atmosphere, substantial O2 did not accumulate irreversibly until the Early Paleoproterozoic, during what has been termed the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE). The timing of the GOE and the rate at which this oxygenation took place have been poorly constrained until now. We report the transition (that is, from being mass-independent to becoming mass-dependent) in multiple sulfur isotope signals of diagenetic pyrite in a continuous sedimentary sequence in three coeval drill cores in the Transvaal Supergroup, South Africa. These data precisely constrain the GOE to 2.33 billion years ago. The new data suggest that the oxygenation occurred rapidly-within 1 to 10 million years-and was followed by a slower rise in the ocean sulfate inventory. Our data indicate that a climate perturbation predated the GOE, whereas the relationships among GOE, "Snowball Earth" glaciation, and biogeochemical cycling will require further stratigraphic correlation supported with precise chronologies and paleolatitude reconstructions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, E25-608, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.; State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, and School of Earth Science, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Genming
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, E25-608, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Shuhei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ono
authors.affiliation: DST-NRF (Department of Science and Technology-National Research Foundation) Centre of Excellence for Integrated Mineral and Energy Resource Analysis, Department of Geology, University of Johannesburg, P.O. Box 524, Auckland Park 2006, South Africa.
authors.forename: Nicolas J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Beukes
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, E25-608, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: David T
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-2656-8951
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, and School of Earth Science, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Shucheng
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, E25-608, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Roger E
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7144-8537
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Summons
mesh_terms: D001272:Atmosphere / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry; D018534:Earth, Planet; D019419:Evolution, Planetary; D049690:History, Ancient; D007501:Iron; D010100:Oxygen / Q000032:analysis; D013440:Sulfides
chemical_list: D013440:Sulfides; C011342:pyrite; D007501:Iron; D010100:Oxygen
keywords: GOE; Great Oxidation Event; Oxygen; Paleoproterozoic; atmosphere; sulfur isotopes