Atmospheric CO 2 levels from 2.7 billion years ago inferred from micrometeorite oxidation
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Iron-rich micrometeorites from a 2.7 billion-year-old limestone could constrain atmospheric CO 2 levels on the early Earth.
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High CO2 levels (perhaps >70%) oxidized 2.7-Ga-old iron-nickel micrometeorites, providing an alternative to near-modern O2 above ~75 km.
“However, given copious evidence for an anoxic Archean atmosphere, an alternative explanation is that high CO2 levels (perhaps >70%) oxidized the micrometeorites (85).”
From The Archean atmosphere (2020) · cites this paper as [85]
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Self-citationVilović, I., Goyal, J., Heller, R., & von Schauenburg, F. M. (2025) · Astronomische Nachrichten · doi:10.1002/asna.20240081
“While these elevated CO 2 levels correspond more closely to the anoxic conditions of the Archean Eon on Earth (Lehmer et al. 2020) than to levels following the Cambrian explosion that diversified Earth’s biosphere, we included this scenario to examine the range of atmospheric conditions required to…”
- Authors
- Lehmer, O. R., Catling, D. C., Buick, R., Brownlee, D. E., & Newport, S.
- Affiliations
- Ames Research Center (US)
- University of Washington (US)
- Corresponding author
- Lehmer, O. R.
- Venue
- Science Advances
- Published
- 2020-01-24
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- eaay4644-eaay4644
- ISSN
- 2375-2548 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6976288
- OpenAlex
- W3002928623
- Cited by
- 39
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 4
- FWCI
- 3.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Science Advances (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- NASA Astrobiology Institute (80NSSC18K0829)
- NASA Exobiology grant (NNX15AL23G)
- Simons Collaboration (51170)
- 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 › Atmospheric Science › Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
- Keywords
- atmospheric CO2, Archean atmosphere, micrometeorites, early Earth climate, faint young Sun
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