Ancient micrometeorites suggestive of an oxygen-rich Archaean upper atmosphere
Abstract
It is widely accepted that Earth's early atmosphere contained less than 0.001 per cent of the present-day atmospheric oxygen (O2) level, until the Great Oxidation Event resulted in a major rise in O2 concentration about 2.4 billion years ago. There are multiple lines of evidence for low O2 concentrations on early Earth, but all previous observations relate to the composition of the lower atmosphere in the Archaean era; to date no method has been developed to sample the Archaean upper atmosphere. We have extracted fossil micrometeorites from limestone sedimentary rock that had accumulated slowly 2.7 billion years ago before being preserved in Australia's Pilbara region. We propose that these micrometeorites formed when sand-sized particles entered Earth's atmosphere and melted at altitudes of about 75 to 90 kilometres (given an atmospheric density similar to that of today). Here we show that the FeNi metal in the resulting cosmic spherules was oxidized while molten, and quench-crystallized to form spheres of interlocking dendritic crystals primarily of magnetite (Fe3O4), with wüstite (FeO)+metal preserved in a few particles. Our model of atmospheric micrometeorite oxidation suggests that Archaean upper-atmosphere oxygen concentrations may have been close to those of the present-day Earth, and that the ratio of oxygen to carbon monoxide was sufficiently high to prevent noticeable inhibition of oxidation by carbon monoxide. The anomalous sulfur isotope (Δ(33)S) signature of pyrite (FeS2) in seafloor sediments from this period, which requires an anoxic surface environment, implies that there may have been minimal mixing between the upper and lower atmosphere during the Archaean.
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Conditions of very low total atmospheric surface pressures and H2O dissociation at least periodically existed during the Archean, as derived from approximately 2.4 Ga old micrometeorites oxidized in the upper atmosphere.
“That such conditions at least periodically existed and H 2 Owas then indeed dissociated can be derived from ≈ 2.4 Ga old micrometeorites which were oxidized in the upper atmosphere (Tomkins et al. 2016; Zahnle and Buick 2016; Rimmer et al. 2020).”
From The young Sun's XUV-activity as a constraint for lower CO2-limits in the Earth's Archean atmosphere (2021) · cites this paper as Tomkins et al. 2016
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“L274: Do you perhaps mean "anoxygenic", i.e., not evolving O2?”
- Authors
- Tomkins, A. G., Bowlt, L., Genge, M., Wilson, S., Brand, H. E. A., & Wykes, J. L.
- Affiliations
- Monash University (AU)
- Natural History Museum (GB)
- Australian Synchrotron (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Tomkins, Andrew G.
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2016-05-11
- Volume
- 533
- Issue
- 7602
- Pages
- 235-238
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2356142283
- Cited by
- 66
- References
- 31
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 4.14
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Institutional Repository (The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) (submittedVersion)
- Spiral (Imperial College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (ST/J001260/1, ST/N000803/1)
- Division of Materials Research
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astro and Planetary Science
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geophysics › Geological and Geochemical Analysis
- Keywords
- atmospheric oxygen, Great Oxidation Event, micrometeorites, cosmic spherules, magnetite, wüstite, dendritic crystals, carbon monoxide, sulfur isotopes, pyrite, Pilbara, limestone, atmospheric mixing
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