Oceanic nickel depletion and a methanogen famine before the Great Oxidation Event

Kurt O. Konhauser (), Ernesto Pecoits, Stefan V. Lalonde, Dominic Papineau, Euan G. Nisbet, Mark E. Barley, Nicholas T. Arndt, Kevin Zahnle and Balz S. Kamber
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Kurt O. Konhauser: University of Alberta
Ernesto Pecoits: University of Alberta
Stefan V. Lalonde: University of Alberta
Dominic Papineau: Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5251 Broad Branch Road NW, Washington DC 20015, USA
Euan G. Nisbet: Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK
Mark E. Barley: School of Earth and Environment, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia
Nicholas T. Arndt: Laboratoire de Géodynamique des Chaîne Alpines, Maison de Géosciences, Université Joseph Fourier, 1381 rue de la piscine, Grenoble 38041, France
Kevin Zahnle: NASA Ames Research Center, MS 245-3, Moffett Field, California 94035, USA
Balz S. Kamber: Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario P3E 2C6, Canada

Nature, 2009, vol. 458, issue 7239, 750-753

Abstract: Whys after the Event The Great Oxidation Event (GOE), an era on Earth about 2.4 billion years ago when oxygen began to accumulate in the atmosphere, is widely thought to have been triggered by a decrease in atmospheric methane levels. What could have caused methane to start to disappear has remained uncertain. Now based on the discovery of a decline in the molar nickel to iron ratio in banded iron formations, sedimentary rocks laid down about 2.7 billion years ago, Konhauser et al. offer a new hypothesis to explain the loss of methane. They attribute the scarcity of nickel to a reduced flux of nickel to the oceans due to a fall in upper mantle temperatures and a decreased eruption of nickel-rich ultramafic rocks at that time. Nickel is a key cofactor in several enzymes found in methanogens, so its decline may have stifled the activity of methane producing organisms in the ancient oceans and disrupted the supply of biogenic methane.

Date: 2009
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DOI: 10.1038/nature07858

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