Hydrogen sulphide release to surface waters at the Precambrian/Cambrian boundary

Martin Wille (), Thomas F. Nägler, Bernd Lehmann, Stefan Schröder and Jan D. Kramers
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Martin Wille: Institute of Geological Sciences, University of Bern, Baltzerstrasse 3, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
Thomas F. Nägler: Institute of Geological Sciences, University of Bern, Baltzerstrasse 3, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
Bernd Lehmann: Institute of Mineralogy and Mineral Resources, Technical University of Clausthal
Stefan Schröder: Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
Jan D. Kramers: Institute of Geological Sciences, University of Bern, Baltzerstrasse 3, 3012 Bern, Switzerland

Nature, 2008, vol. 453, issue 7196, 767-769

Abstract: The Cambrian explosion: Sulphide rises to the occasion Changes in environmental conditions at the Precambrian–Cambrian transition (around 542 million years ago) have been suggested as a possible explanation for the apparent rapid increase in abundance of multicellular organisms known as the 'Cambrian explosion'. The nature of the environmental changes is still a matter of debate, however. Wille et al. now report molybdenum isotope signatures of black shales from two stratigraphically correlated sample sets with a depositional age of about 542 million years. With the help of a box model of the oceanic molybdenum cycle, they find that intense upwelling of hydrogen sulphide-rich deep ocean water best explains the observed early Cambrian molybdenum isotope signal. This suggests that the early Cambrian animal radiation may have been triggered by a major change in ocean circulation, following a long period during which the ocean was stratified, with sulphidic deep water.

Date: 2008
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DOI: 10.1038/nature07072

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