• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Sunday, February 5, 2023
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Chemistry

New research uncovers continental crust emerged 500 million years earlier than thought

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
April 26, 2021
in Chemistry
Reading Time: 2 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

IMAGE

Credit: Simone Marchi/SwRI

MUNICH — The first emergence and persistence of continental crust on Earth during the Archaean (4 billion to 2.5 billion years ago) has important implications for plate tectonics, ocean chemistry, and biological evolution, and it happened about half a billion years earlier than previously thought, according to new research being presented at the EGU General Assembly 2021.

Once land becomes established through dynamic processes like plate tectonics, it begins to weather and add crucial minerals and nutrients to the ocean. A record of these nutrients is preserved in the ancient rock record. Previous research used strontium isotopes in marine carbonates, but these rocks are usually scarce or altered in rocks older than 3 billion years.

Now, researchers are presenting a new approach to trace the first emergence of old rocks using a different mineral: “barite”.

Barite forms from a combination of sulfate coming from ocean water mixing with barium from hydrothermal vents. Barite holds a robust record of ocean chemistry within its structure, useful for reconstructing ancient environments. “The composition of the piece of barite we pick up in the field now that has been on Earth for three and a half billion years, is exactly the same as it was when it when it actually precipitated,” says Desiree Roerdink, a geochemist at University of Bergen, Norway, and team leader of the new research. “So in essence, it is really a great recorder to look at processes on the early Earth.”

Roerdink and her team tested six different deposits on three different continents, ranging from about 3.2 billion to 3.5 billion years old. They calculated the ratio of strontium isotopes in the barite, and from there, inferred the time where the weathered continental rock made its way to the ocean and incorporated itself into the barite. Based on the data captured in the barite, they found that weathering started about 3.7 billion years ago–about 500 million years earlier than previously thought.

“That is a huge time period,” Roerdink says. “It essentially has implications for the way that we think about how life evolved.” She added that scientists usually think about life starting in deep sea, hydrothermal settings, but the biosphere is complex. “We don’t really know if it is possible that life could have developed at the same time on land,” she noted, adding “but then that land has to be there.”

Lastly, the emergence of land says something about plate tectonics and the early emergence of a geodynamic Earth. “To get land, you need processes operating to form that continental crust, and form a crust that is chemically different from the oceanic crust,” Roerdink says.

###

Media Contact
Terri Cook
[email protected]

Original Source

https://egu.eu/7TN29K/

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-4701

Tags: Chemistry/Physics/Materials SciencesEarth ScienceGeographyHydrology/Water ResourcesOceanography
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Jeffrey Rimer, University of Houston Abraham E. Dukler Professor of Chemical Engineering

During dolphin research, UH engineer discovers new method to possibly improve pharmaceuticals

February 3, 2023
Dr Egle Klumbyte

Researchers: Energy-efficient construction materials work better in colder climates

February 3, 2023

The power of theory: Finding an efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen peroxide synthesis

February 3, 2023

Robots and A.I. team up to discover highly selective catalysts

February 3, 2023
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • Jean du Terrail, Senior Machine Learning Scientist at Owkin

    Nature Medicine publishes breakthrough Owkin research on the first ever use of federated learning to train deep learning models on multiple hospitals’ histopathology data

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
  • First made-in-Singapore antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) approved to enter clinical trials

    58 shares
    Share 23 Tweet 15
  • Metal-free batteries raise hope for more sustainable and economical grids

    41 shares
    Share 16 Tweet 10
  • One-pot reaction creates versatile building block for bioactive molecules

    37 shares
    Share 15 Tweet 9

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Health Equity Report Card pilot project to help close the care gap highlighted on World Cancer Day

Tech that turns household surfaces into touch sensors is a touch closer to application

Preference for naturally talented over hard workers emerges in childhood, HKUST researchers find

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 42 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In