A hydrothermal origin for isotopically anomalous cap dolostone cements from south China

Thomas F. Bristow (), Magali Bonifacie, Arkadiusz Derkowski, John M. Eiler and John P. Grotzinger
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Thomas F. Bristow: California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
Magali Bonifacie: California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
Arkadiusz Derkowski: Institute of Geological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences, Senacka 1, 31-002 Kraków, Poland
John M. Eiler: California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
John P. Grotzinger: California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, California 91125, USA

Nature, 2011, vol. 474, issue 7349, 68-71

Abstract: No way out for snowball Earth Earth's emergence from perhaps its most severe ice age, the Marinoan 'snowball' glaciation around 635 million years ago, is thought to be linked with a massive release of trapped methane — largely based on evidence of a characteristic isotopic signature in calcite deposits in rock layers formed at the time. Bristow et al. propose that, instead, these calcites were formed by hydrothermal fluids at least 1.6 million years after the deposition of the surrounding strata, and that their signature derives from the thermogenic oxidation of hydrothermal methane from elsewhere. This withdraws a key line of evidence underpinning our understanding of how temperate conditions resumed following this extreme glaciation.

Date: 2011
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DOI: 10.1038/nature10096

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