Iron Formations: a Global Record of Neoarchaean to Palaeoproterozoic
1 Iron Formations: A Global Record of Neoarchaean to Palaeoproterozoic Environmental History K.O. Konhauser1, N.J. Planavsky2,10, D.S. Hardisty3, L.J., Robbins1, T.J. Warchola1, R. Haugaard1,4, S.V. Lalonde5, C.A. Partin6, P.B.H. Oonk7, H. Tsikos7, T.W. Lyons8,10, A. Bekker8, and Johnson, C.M.9,10 1Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E3, Canada 2Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 06520, USA 3Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, 02542, USA 4Mineral Exploration Research Centre, Harquail School of Earth Science, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, P3E 2C6, Canada. 5UMR6538 Laboratoire Géosciences Océan, European Institute for Marine Studies, Technopôle Brest-Iroise, Plouzané, 29280, France 6Department of Geological Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5E2, Canada. 7Department of Geology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa 8Department of Earth Sciences, University of California, Riverside, California, 92521, USA 9Department of Geoscience, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706, USA 10NASA Astrobiology Institute 2 Table of contents 1. Introduction 2. What Iron Formations Indicate About the Precambrian Environment 2.1 Hydrothermal sources of iron to the oceans 2.2 Continental sources of iron to the oceans 2.3 Plausible primary iron mineralogy 2.4 Available oxidants in seawater for Fe(II) oxidation 2.5 The geobiology of iron formations 2.5.1 Evidence in the rock record for the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis 2.5.2 Evidence in the rock record for the evolution of photoferrotrophy 2.6 Available reductants and diagenesis of iron formations 2.7 Iron formations as tracers of seawater redox 3.
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