Although the oceans from ancient times have disappeared, the events that occurred in them have been recorded in rocks. By examining these rocks, we can connect Earth's past to its present and future, gaining a deeper understanding of our planet's history. Could nitrate be responsible for algae, f
Carbonate rock samples collected from the North China Craton. Credit: Christina Franusich for Virginia Tech.
“Where we sit today, with life as it is on the planet, is the sum total of all the events that happened in the past,” said Ben Gill, an associate professor of sedimentary geochemistry and co-author on the paper. “And this is a key event where we shift from dominantly prokaryotic ecosystems — cells that are much simpler than the ones in our bodies — to eukaryotes. If that did not happen, we would not be here today.
Collaborating with the Nanjing University in Nanjing, China, Kang has spent two years working to understand what drove the rise of eukaryotes through nitrogen isotope analysis of rock samples from the North China Craton. Home to rocks dating back 3.8 billion years ago, the region was once covered by an ocean.
“Once we did this kind of integration and put it into a big picture, we saw the rise of nitrates through time, which happened around 800 million years ago,” said Kang.A collaborative, international approach was key to connecting this new data with biological events, most notably, the rise of eukaryotes.
Reid, who generally focuses her research on Earth’s more recent events, had a special opportunity to offer her nitrogen isotope expertise to these ancient fossils. “We can link the dots from the nitrogen isotopic compositions in the ancient past and then go to the next step and infer how much nitrate was available for organisms,” said Xiao. “And then we tie that with the fossil data to show that there’s a relationship.”
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