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A lithium-isotope perspective on the evolution of carbon and silicon cycles

Abstract

The evolution of the global carbon and silicon cycles is thought to have contributed to the long-term stability of Earth’s climate1,2,3. Many questions remain, however, regarding the feedback mechanisms at play, and there are limited quantitative constraints on the sources and sinks of these elements in Earth’s surface environments4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. Here we argue that the lithium-isotope record can be used to track the processes controlling the long-term carbon and silicon cycles. By analysing more than 600 shallow-water marine carbonate samples from more than 100 stratigraphic units, we construct a new carbonate-based lithium-isotope record spanning the past 3 billion years. The data suggest an increase in the carbonate lithium-isotope values over time, which we propose was driven by long-term changes in the lithium-isotopic conditions of sea water, rather than by changes in the sedimentary alterations of older samples. Using a mass-balance modelling approach, we propose that the observed trend in lithium-isotope values reflects a transition from Precambrian carbon and silicon cycles to those characteristic of the modern. We speculate that this transition was linked to a gradual shift to a biologically controlled marine silicon cycle and the evolutionary radiation of land plants13,14.

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Fig. 1: Isotope records in carbonates through time.
Fig. 2: Thin-section photomicrographs of representative well preserved carbonates from this study.
Fig. 3: Two-dimensional density heat map of Li-isotope mass-balance results.

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Data availability

All geochemical data generated here are included in Supplementary Table 2 and are available on Mendeley Data (https://doi.org/10.17632/ztpkpbm43x.1). Splits of samples are reposited in the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Code availability

A description of the global Li mass-balance model is available in Supplementary Information. Additional code (in Python) has been posted on GitHub (https://github.com/jkatch/Li-global-mass-balance). A description of the Li-isotope diagenetic model is available in Supplementary Information.

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Acknowledgements

N.J.P. acknowledges funding from the Alternative Earths NASA Astrobiology Institute and the Packard Foundation. P.A.E.P.v.S. was funded by a European Research Council (ERC) consolidator grant (682760 CONTROLPASTCO2). A.v.S.H. acknowledges funding from an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA; DE190100988). B.K.-A. acknowledges financial support from the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies. We thank J. Utrup, S. H. Butts and the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History for providing brachiopods and carbonate samples.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

B.K.-A., N.J.P., P.A.E.P.v.S. and J.A.R.K. designed the research. E.J.B., A.v.S.H., D.S.J., F.A.M., M.W.W., J.A.R.K., A.H., F.O.O., C.W., M.D. and N.J.P. collected samples. B.K.-A., P.A.E.P.v.S., J.A.R.K., M.D., J.G.M., D.A., F.A.M., A.J.W. and J.A.H. conducted geochemical analyses. J.A.R.K. wrote the Li-isotope mass-balance model. B.K.-A. wrote the Li-isotope diagenetic model. B.K.-A., N.J.P., P.A.E.P.v.S. and J.A.R.K. analysed the data and wrote the paper. All authors contributed to the preparation of the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Boriana Kalderon-Asael, Noah J. Planavsky or Philip A. E. Pogge von Strandmann.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature thanks Jeremy Caves Rugenstein and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

The file contains Supplementary Figures 1 – 29; Supplementary Tables 1 – 3; Supplementary Methods; Supplementary Discussion; Global lithium isotope mass balance; Diagenetic modelling and Supplementary References.

Supplementary Table 1

Description of the samples analysed in this study at a) Yale University; b) Oxford and University College London.

Supplementary Table 2

Geochemical data generated in this study: a) δ7Li (in ‰), Li, Mg, Al, Ca, Ti, Mn, Rb, Sr, Pb concentrations (in ppm) and δ44/40Ca (in ‰) of the samples analysed at Yale University; b) δ7Li (in ‰), Li/Ca, Al/Ca, Mn/Ca, Sr/Ca and Mg/Ca elemental ratios of the samples analysed at Oxford and University College London.

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Kalderon-Asael, B., Katchinoff, J.A.R., Planavsky, N.J. et al. A lithium-isotope perspective on the evolution of carbon and silicon cycles. Nature 595, 394–398 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03612-1

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