The DOI matches its Crossref record; 28 of the 28 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Evidence from fluid inclusions for microbial methanogenesis in the early Archaean era
Abstract
Methanogenic microbes may be one of the most primitive organisms, although it is uncertain when methanogens first appeared on Earth. During the Archaean era (before 2.5 Gyr ago), methanogens may have been important in regulating climate, because they could have provided sufficient amounts of the greenhouse gas methane to mitigate a severely frozen condition that could have resulted from lower solar luminosity during these times. Nevertheless, no direct geological evidence has hitherto been available in support of the existence of methanogens in the Archaean period, although circumstantial evidence is available in the form of approximately 2.8-Gyr-old carbon-isotope-depleted kerogen. Here we report crushing extraction and carbon isotope analysis of methane-bearing fluid inclusions in approximately 3.5-Gyr-old hydrothermal precipitates from Pilbara craton, Australia. Our results indicate that the extracted fluids contain microbial methane with carbon isotopic compositions of less than -56 per thousand included within original precipitates. This provides the oldest evidence of methanogen (> 3.46 Gyr ago), pre-dating previous geochemical evidence by about 700 million years.
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In the citing paper
“The Archean lower atmosphere is unlikely to have been H2-rich given the antiquity of methanogens (23, 51, 197), some of which convert H2 into methane through a net reaction”
From The Archean atmosphere (2020) · cites this paper as [51]
In the citing paper
“The Archean lower atmosphere is unlikely to have been H2-rich given the antiquity of methanogens (23, 51, 197), some of which convert H2 into methane through a net reaction”
From The Archean atmosphere (2020) · cites this paper as [51]
In the citing paper
“First, O2 is a product of cyanobacterial photosynthesis, which was lacking [89] in the environment at the origin of the acetyl‐CoA pathway and methanogens > 3.5 billion years ago [65, 82].”
From Evidence for corrin biosynthesis in the last universal common ancestor (2025) · cites this paper as [65]
In the citing paper
“Methane isotopes [65] provide the earliest evidence for life on Earth, tracing methanogenesis, hence the acetyl‐CoA pathway, hence an ancestral CoFeS (judging by the homology between bacterial and archaeal CoFeS), hence corrins, into rocks 3.8 billion years of age.”
From Evidence for corrin biosynthesis in the last universal common ancestor (2025) · cites this paper as [65]
In the citing paper
“Isotope data trace the ultralight isotope signature of the acetyl‐CoA pathway [68] back to > 3.5 Ga [65, 66], consistent with the structural (Fig. 3) and phylogenetic (Fig. 5) evidence for the age of corrins.”
From Evidence for corrin biosynthesis in the last universal common ancestor (2025) · cites this paper as [65]
In the citing paper
“That line of reasoning is still current [73,162,163] and is reinforced by geochemical data providing evidence for the antiquity of methanogenesis [164].”
From Early bioenergetic evolution (2013) · cites this paper as [164]
In the citing paper
“With that in mind, dismal appear the prospects of getting branching patterns sorted out for prokaryotes, which have been around for 3.8 billion years or more [30,164], assuming that there are any real branches in that phylogeny to be recovered in the first place [225], and the goal probably pushes phylogenetics beyond its limits.”
From Early bioenergetic evolution (2013) · cites this paper as [164]
Citations
Cites
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Questioning the evidence for Earth's oldest fossils
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Charlou, J., Donval, J., Fouquet, Y., Jean‐Baptiste, P., & Holm, N. G. (2002) · Chemical Geology · doi:10.1016/s0009-2541(02)00134-1 · Cited by 950
Genetic Characterization of Natural Gases
Schoell, M. (1983) · AAPG Bulletin · doi:10.1306/ad46094a-16f7-11d7-8645000102c1865d · Cited by 948
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Isotopic evidence for microbial sulphate reduction in the early Archaean era
Shen, Y., Buick, R., & Canfield, D. E. (2001) · Nature · doi:10.1038/35065071 · Cited by 620
Abiogenic Methane Formation and Isotopic Fractionation Under Hydrothermal Conditions
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Evolution of a Habitable Planet
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Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Thorpe, R. I., Hickman, A. H., Davis, D. W., Mortensen, J. K. & Trendall, A. F. in The Archaean: Terrains, Processes and Metallogeny (eds Glover, J. E. & Ho, S. E.) 395–406 (Univ. Western Australia Publ. 9, Perth, 1992)
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Takai, K., Nakamura, K., Toki, T., Tsunogai, U., Miyazaki, M., Miyazaki, J., Hirayama, H., Nakagawa, S., Nunoura, T., & Horikoshi, K. (2008) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0712334105 · Cited by 848
On the origin of biochemistry at an alkaline hydrothermal vent
Martin, W., & Russell, M. J. (2007) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2006.1881 · Cited by 771
Hazen, R. M., Papineau, D., Bleeker, W., Downs, R. T., Ferry, J. M., McCoy, T. J., Sverjensky, D. A., & Yang, H. (2008) · American Mineralogist · doi:10.2138/am.2008.2955 · Cited by 701
Etiope, G., & Sherwood Lollar, B. (2013) · Reviews of Geophysics · doi:10.1002/rog.20011 · Cited by 620
Endosymbiotic theories for eukaryote origin
Martin, W. F., Garg, S., & Zimorski, V. (2015) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2014.0330 · Cited by 583
Metadata
- Authors
- Ueno, Y., Yamada, K., Yoshida, N., Maruyama, S., & Isozaki, Y.
- Affiliations
- Tokyo Institute of Technology (JP)
- The University of Tokyo (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Ueno, Yuichiro
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2006-03
- Volume
- 440
- Issue
- 7083
- Pages
- 516-519
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2058299864
- Cited by
- 572
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 25 · 2025: 32 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 39 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 54 · 2020: 32 · 2019: 38 · 2018: 61 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 21 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 19 · 2012: 19
- FWCI
- 19.75
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Tokyo Tech Research Repository (Tokyo Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Origins and Evolution of Life
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Chemistry › Methane Hydrates and Related Phenomena
- Keywords
- microbial methanogenesis, methanogenic archaea, fluid inclusions, biogenic methane, carbon isotopes, hydrothermal precipitates, Pilbara Craton, early life
- MeSH terms
- Australia, Environmental Microbiology, Methane, Silicon Dioxide, Geologic Sediments
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