Modern phosphogenesis occurs on continental margins influenced by upwelling and high primary productivity. The formation of phosphatic sediments is coupled to global climate fluctuations, biological cycling of phosphorus and local redox conditions. Although the processes involved in phosphogenesis are well described, high-resolution data on the redox and stable isotope systematics in Recent in-situ ...

Paleoproterozoic sedimentary successions are important archives of the redox evolution of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. Efforts to unravel the dynamics of our planet’s early oxygenation from this archive rely on various geochemical proxies, including stable carbon and sulfur isotopes. However, ancient metasedimentary rocks often experienced early- and late-stage (bio)geochemical processes making ...

The exceptionally organic-rich rocks of the 1.98 Ga Zaonega Formation deposited in the Onega Basin, NW Russia, have refined our understanding of Earth System evolution during the Paleoproterozoic rise in atmospheric oxygen. These rocks were formed in vent- or seep influenced settings contemporaneous with voluminous mafic volcanism and contain strongly ¹³C-depleted organic matter. ...

The approximately 2,220–2,060 million years old Lomagundi–Jatuli Event was the longest positive carbon isotope excursion in Earth history and is traditionally interpreted to reflect an increased organic carbon burial and a transient rise in atmospheric O₂. However, it is widely held that O₂ levels collapsed for more than a billion years after this. Here we show that black shales ...

Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere and its capacity to sustain complex life is the most paramount feature that distinguishes Earth from all other planets. The irreversible oxygenation of atmosphere occurred about half way through Earth’s history at ~2.3 Ga (the Great Oxidation Event – GOE) when for the first-time photosynthetic oxygen production surpassed the consumption by chemical reactions allowing ...