Transient fertilization of a post-Sturtian Snowball ocean margin with dissolved phosphate by clay minerals

Abstract

Marine sedimentary rocks deposited across the Neoproterozoic Cryogenian Snowball interval, ~720-635 million years ago, suggest that post-Snowball fertilization of shallow continental margin seawater with phosphorus accelerated marine primary productivity, ocean-atmosphere oxygenation, and ultimately the rise of animals. However, the mechanisms that sourced and delivered bioavailable phosphate from land to the ocean are not fully understood. Here we demonstrate a causal relationship between clay mineral production by the melting Sturtian Snowball ice sheets and a short-lived increase in seawater phosphate bioavailability by at least 20-fold and oxygenation of an immediate post-Sturtian Snowball ocean margin. Bulk primary sediment inputs and inferred dissolved seawater phosphate dynamics point to a relatively low marine phosphate inventory that limited marine primary productivity and seawater oxygenation before the Sturtian glaciation, and again in the later stages of the succeeding interglacial greenhouse interval.

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Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Fru, E.C. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2673-0565 Bahri, J.A. Brosson, C. Bankole, O. Aubineau, J. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7847-6207 El Albani, A. Nederbragt, A. Oldroyd, A. Skelton, A. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3732-7993 Lowhagen, L. Webster, D. Fantong, W.Y. Mills, B.J.W. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9141-0931 Alcott, L.J. Konhauser, K.O. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7722-7068 Lyons, T.W.
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Dates:	Published: 1 December 2023 Published (online): 18 December 2023 Accepted: 5 December 2023
Institution:	The University of Leeds
Academic Units:	The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Earth Surface Science Institute (ESSI) (Leeds)
Depositing User:	Symplectic Publications
Date Deposited:	05 Jan 2024 15:35
Last Modified:	05 Jan 2024 15:35
Published Version:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-44240-9
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Identification Number:	10.1038/s41467-023-44240-9
Related URLs:	PubMed URL
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:207229

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Transient fertilization of a post-Sturtian Snowball ocean margin with dissolved phosphate by clay minerals

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