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Developments in Precambrian Geology 7 DEVELOPMENTS AND INTERACTIONS OF THE PRECAMBRIAN AT.MOSPHERE, LITHOSPHERE AND BIOSPHERE DEVELOPMENTS IN PRECAMBRIAN GEOLOGY Advisory Editor B.F. Windley Further titles in this series 1. B.F. WINDLEY and S.M. NAQVl (Editors) Archaean Geochemistry 2. D.R. HUNTER (Editor) Precambrian of the Southern Hemisphere 3. K.C. CONDIE Archean Greenstone Belts 4. A. KRONER (Editor) Precambrian Plate Tectonics 5. Y.P. MEL’NIK Precambrian Banded Iron-formations. Physicochemical Conditions of Formation 6. A.F. TRENDALL and R.C. MORRIS (Editors) Iron-Formation: Facts and Problems DEVELOPMENTS IN PRECAMBRIAN GEOLOGY 7 DEVELOPMENTS AND INTERACTIONS OF THE PRECAMBRIAN ATMOSPHERE, LITHOSPHERE AND BIOSPHERE Compilation of papers based on the presentations of participants at, or contributed by authors unable to attend, the IGCP Projects 157 and 160 meeting at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City, Mexico, January 11-14, 1982. Edited by B. NAGY Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A. R. WEBER AND J.C. GUERRERO lnstitut di Geologia, Universidad Nacional Autdnoma de MeiCico, M6xico City, Mexico and M. SCHIDLOWSKI Max-Planck-lnstitut fur Chemie, Mainz, F. R. of Germany reprinted from Precambrian Geology, vol. 20, nos. 2-4 ELSEVIER, Amsterdam - Oxford - New York - Tokyo 1983 ELSEVIER SCIENCE PUBLISHERS B.V. Molenwerf 1, 1014 AG Amsterdam P.O. Box 21 1, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Distributors for the United States and Canada: ELSEVIER SCIENCE PUBLISHING INC. 52, Vanderbilt Avenue New York, N.Y. 10017 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Dnta !,lain entry under title: Developments and internctians of the Precambriar. atmosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere. (Uew1opment.s in Precambrian geslo,;ji ; 7) "Ri,printeil from Precambrian ,px!loSy. vol. 20. nos. 7-14.'' "ICCP Project nos. 157 and 160." Ijibliography: p. 1. &olot:y, Stratii:raphic--Pre-Cambrian--Addresses. c:;.;ays, lectures. I. Nagy, Bartholomew, 1927- 11. Scries. W6'j 3.11117 198! 551.7'1 83-165:10 ISNV o - J t J I it -1 t>c) 40 -4 ISBN 0-444-42240-4 (VOI. 7) ISBN 0-444-41 719-2 (Series) 0 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., 1983 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or other- wise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., P.O. Box 330, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Printed in The Netherlands V CONTENTS Fore word (Bartholome w Nagy) ..................................... vii Preface (Reinhard Weber and Jose C. Guerrero). .......................... ix Preface (Manfred Schidlowski). ..................................... xi Oxygen and ozone in the early Earth’s atmosphere V.M. Canuto (New York, NY, U.S.A.), J.S. Levine, T.R. Augustsson (Hampton, VA, U.S.A.) and C.L. Imhoff (Greenbelt, MD, U.S.A.) ............ 1 Photochemistry of methane in the Earth’s early atmosphere J.F. Kasting (Boulder, CA, U.S.A.), K.J. Zahnle and J.C.G. Walker (Ann Arbor, M1,U.S.A.). .............................................. 13 Proterozoic aeolian quartz arenites from the Hornby Bay Group, Northwest Territories, Canada: implications for Precambrian aeolian processes G.M. Ross (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) .............................. 41 Precambrian atmospheric oxygen and banded iron formations: a delayed ocean model K.M. Towe (Washington, DC, U.S.A.) .............................. 53 Tectonic systems and the deposition of iron-formation G.A. Gross (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) ............................. 63 Archaean chemical weathering at three localities on the Canadian Shield M. Schau and J.B. Henderson (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) ................. 81 Pedogenetic and diagenetic fabrics in the Upper Proterozoic SarnyBr6 formation (Gourma, Mali) J. Bertrand-Sarfati and A. Moussine-Pouchkine (Montpellier, France) .........117 Rare earth elements in the early Archaean Isua iron-formation, West Greenland P.W.U. Appel (Copenhagen, Denmark) ............................. 135 Primitive Earth environments: organic syntheses and the origin and early evolution of life A. Lazcano (Mexico, Mexico), J. Or6 (Houston, TX, U.S.A.) and S.L. Miller (La Jolla, CA, U.S.A.) ........................................ 151 Natural nuclear reactors and ionizing radiation in the Precambrian I.G. Draganie, Z.D. Draganie (Mexico, Mexico) and D. Altiparmakov (Beograd, Yugoslavia) ............................................... 175 Evolutionary connections of biological kingdoms based on protein and nucleic acid sequence evidence M.O. Dayhoff (Washington, DC, U.S.A.) ............................ 191 Evolution of photoautotrophy and early atmospheric oxygen levels M. Schidlowski (Mainz, W. Germany) .............................. 211 Further sulphur and carbon isotope studies of late Archaean iron-formations of the Canadian shield and the rise of sulfate reducing bacteria H.G. Thode (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) and A.M. Goodwin (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) .......................................... .229 Filamentous fossil bacteria from the Archaean of Western Australia S.M. Awramik (Santa Barbara, CA, U.S.A.), J.W. Schopf and M.R. Walter (Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.) ..................................... 249 Pseudo-oolites in rocks of the Ulundi Formation, lower part of the Archaen Fig Tree Group (South Africa) T.O. Reimer (Wiesbaden, W. Germany) ............................. 267 Sedimentary geology and stromatolites of the Middle Proterozoic Belt Supergroup, Glacier National Park, Montana R.J. Horodyski (New Orleans, LA, U.S.A.) .......................... 283 vi The emergence of Metazoa in the early history of life M.F. Glaessner (Adelaide, S.A., Australia) .......................... .319 Distinctive microbial structures and the pre-Phanerozoic fossil record L. Margulis, B.D.D. Grosovsky, J.F. Stolz, E.J. Gong-Collins, S. Lenk (Boston, MA, U.S.A.), D. Read (North Dartmouth, MA, U.S.A.) and A. Lop&-CortBs (Mexico, Mexico) ............................... .335 Fine structure of the stratified microbial community at Laguna Figueroa, Baja California, Mexico. I. Methods of in situ study of the laminated sediments J.F. Stolz (Boston, MA, U.S.A.) ................................. 371 Stromatolites -the challenge of a term in space and time W.E. Krumbein (Oldenburg, W. Germany) .......................... .385 Stratiform copper deposits and interactions with co-existing atmospheres, hydrospheres, biospheres and lithospheres A.C. Brown and F.M. Chartrand (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) ............. .425 Origin and distribution of gold in the Huronian Supergroup, Canada -the case for Witwatersrand-type paleoplacers D.J. Mossman (Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada) and G.A. Harron (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) ............................ .435 vii Fore word This volume contains articles which resulted from the joint meeting of International Geological Correlation Program Projects 157 and 160, held in Mexico City. Pertinent details of the scope and organization of the meeting are described in the Prefaces. For introduction, it seems appropriate to quote from the Presidential Address of Robert Etheridge, F.R.S. to the Geological Society of London. “Time and life are two subjects that at once arrest the attention of all earnest students. Our knowledge of the commencement of either is as indef- inite now as in the days of the earliest investigators. With the succession of sedimentary rock masses in the outer framework of the globe we are perhaps partly familiar. yet yearly some new light is thrown upon the obscure history of the earliest rocks with which we believe ourselves acquainted”. Some of the ideas presented in this are new, and are indeed novel. These should be challenged in print; this is how new scientific insight is acquired. Studies of the Precambrian, having sufficiently wide scope and great depth are still not common. This is a relatively new field of scientific endeavor. As in all young fields of inquiry, entrenched ideas occasionally hamper the evolution of heterodox concepts. This is noteworthy in context of Robert Etheridge’s munificent Presidential Address, which was published in 1881 - one hundred and two years ago. BARTHOLOMEWNAGY This Page Intentionally Left Blank ix Preface This volume contains a set of papers resulting from the second joint meeting of Projects 157 and 160 of the International Geological Correlation Program held in January, 1982, in Mexico City, under the general title “Development and Interactions of the Precambrian Lithosphere, Biosphere and Atmosphere”. In addition, the issue contains some articles by authors who had been invited, but, because of various circumstances were unable to attend the meeting. In 1980, rather surprisingly, the participants of the first common work- shop of IGCP Projects 157 and 160, held at Santa Barbara, California, invited the Geological Institute of the National University of Mexico (UNAM) to organize and host the second common meeting of these projects. Manfred Schidlowski and Erich Dimroth, the chairmen of these projects at the time of the Santa Barbara workshop, provided us with an excellent op- portunity to bring together a large group of outstanding researchers, and to present to this audience the results of several research programs in Precam- brian geology, paleontology and the origins of life, which are being carried on in Mexico. About 40 specialists in astrophysics, microbiology, oceanography and a wide array
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