Molecular evidence of Late Archean archaea and the presence of a subsurface hydrothermal biosphere
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Highly cracked and isomerized archaeal lipids and bacterial lipids, structurally changed by thermal stress, are present in solvent extracts of 2,707- to 2,685-million-year-old (Ma) metasedimentary rocks from Timmins, ON, Canada. These lipids appear in conventional gas chromatograms as unresolved complex mixtures and include cyclic and acyclic biphytanes, C 36 –C 39 derivatives of the biphytanes, and C 31 –C 35 extended hopanes. Biphytane and extended hopanes are also found in high-pressure catalytic hydrogenation products released from solvent-extracted sediments, indicating that archaea and bacteria were present in Late Archean sedimentary environments. Postdepositional, hydrothermal gold mineralization and graphite precipitation occurred before metamorphism (≈2,665 Ma). Late Archean metamorphism significantly reduced the kerogen's adsorptive capacity and severely restricted sediment porosity, limiting the potential for post-Archean additions of organic matter to the samples. Argillites exposed to hydrothermal gold mineralization have disproportionately high concentrations of extractable archaeal and bacterial lipids relative to what is releasable from their respective high-pressure catalytic hydrogenation product and what is observed for argillites deposited away from these hydrothermal settings. The addition of these lipids to the sediments likely results from a Late Archean subsurface hydrothermal biosphere of archaea and bacteria.
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Extractable acyclic isoprenoids and a homologous series of n-alkanes (C10-23+) were below detection limits or cumulative laboratory blank concentrations in the AIDP samples.
“Moreover, extractable acyclic isoprenoids and a homologous series of extractable n-alkanes (C 10-23+ ), both of which were prominent in previous Archean biomarker studies (1-3, 5, 7, 22, 23), were also below detection limits or cumulative laboratory blank concentrations in the AIDP samples.”
From Reappraisal of hydrocarbon biomarkers in Archean rocks (2015) · cites this paper as [23]
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Reappraisal of hydrocarbon biomarkers in Archean rocks
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- Authors
- Ventura, G. T., Kenig, F., Reddy, C. M., Schieber, J., Frysinger, G. S., Nelson, R. K., Dinel, E., Gaines, R. B., & Schaeffer, P.
- Affiliations
- University of Illinois Chicago (US)
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (US)
- Department of Geological Sciences, Indiana University, 1001 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN 47405-1405;
- United States Coast Guard Academy (US)
- University of Ottawa (CA)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2007-09-04
- Volume
- 104
- Issue
- 36
- Pages
- 14260-14265
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC1964827
- OpenAlex
- W2125325383
- Cited by
- 81
- References
- 54
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 5.04
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Open Access Server of the Woods Hole Scientific Community (Woods Hole Scientific Community) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0430835, 0318769)
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- 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 › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geophysics › Geological and Geochemical Analysis
- Keywords
- archaeal lipids, bacterial lipids, hydrothermal gold mineralization, graphite precipitation, kerogen, metasedimentary rocks
- MeSH terms
- Archaea, Carbon, Catalysis, Chromatography, Gas, Fossils, Graphite, Hydrocarbons, Hydrogen, Microscopy, Electron, Scanning, Organic Chemicals, Temperature, Time Factors, Water, Molecular Structure, Evolution, Molecular, Lipid Metabolism
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