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Microbially induced potassium enrichment in Paleoproterozoic shales and implications for reverse weathering on early Earth

Illitisation requires potassium incorporation into a smectite precursor, a process akin to reverse weathering. However, it remains unclear whether microbes facilitate K(+) uptake to the sediments and whether illitisation was important in the geological past. The 2.1 billion-year-old Francevillian Se...

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Autores principales: Aubineau, Jérémie, El Albani, Abderrazak, Bekker, Andrey, Somogyi, Andrea, Bankole, Olabode M., Macchiarelli, Roberto, Meunier, Alain, Riboulleau, Armelle, Reynaud, Jean-Yves, Konhauser, Kurt O.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6572813/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31209248
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10620-3
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author Aubineau, Jérémie
El Albani, Abderrazak
Bekker, Andrey
Somogyi, Andrea
Bankole, Olabode M.
Macchiarelli, Roberto
Meunier, Alain
Riboulleau, Armelle
Reynaud, Jean-Yves
Konhauser, Kurt O.
author_facet Aubineau, Jérémie
El Albani, Abderrazak
Bekker, Andrey
Somogyi, Andrea
Bankole, Olabode M.
Macchiarelli, Roberto
Meunier, Alain
Riboulleau, Armelle
Reynaud, Jean-Yves
Konhauser, Kurt O.
author_sort Aubineau, Jérémie
collection PubMed
description Illitisation requires potassium incorporation into a smectite precursor, a process akin to reverse weathering. However, it remains unclear whether microbes facilitate K(+) uptake to the sediments and whether illitisation was important in the geological past. The 2.1 billion-year-old Francevillian Series of Gabon has been shown to host mat-related structures (MRS) and, in this regard, these rocks offer a unique opportunity to test whether ancient microbes induced illitisation. Here, we show high K content confined to illite particles that are abundant in the facies bearing MRS, but not in the host sandstone and black shale. This observation suggests that microbial biofilms trapped K(+) from the seawater and released it into the pore-waters during respiration, resulting in illitisation. The K-rich illite developed exclusively in the fossilized MRS thus provides a new biosignature for metasediments derived from K-feldspar-depleted rocks that were abundant crustal components on ancient Earth.
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spelling pubmed-65728132019-06-24 Microbially induced potassium enrichment in Paleoproterozoic shales and implications for reverse weathering on early Earth Aubineau, Jérémie El Albani, Abderrazak Bekker, Andrey Somogyi, Andrea Bankole, Olabode M. Macchiarelli, Roberto Meunier, Alain Riboulleau, Armelle Reynaud, Jean-Yves Konhauser, Kurt O. Nat Commun Article Illitisation requires potassium incorporation into a smectite precursor, a process akin to reverse weathering. However, it remains unclear whether microbes facilitate K(+) uptake to the sediments and whether illitisation was important in the geological past. The 2.1 billion-year-old Francevillian Series of Gabon has been shown to host mat-related structures (MRS) and, in this regard, these rocks offer a unique opportunity to test whether ancient microbes induced illitisation. Here, we show high K content confined to illite particles that are abundant in the facies bearing MRS, but not in the host sandstone and black shale. This observation suggests that microbial biofilms trapped K(+) from the seawater and released it into the pore-waters during respiration, resulting in illitisation. The K-rich illite developed exclusively in the fossilized MRS thus provides a new biosignature for metasediments derived from K-feldspar-depleted rocks that were abundant crustal components on ancient Earth. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-06-17 /pmc/articles/PMC6572813/ /pubmed/31209248 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10620-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access 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/.
spellingShingle Article
Aubineau, Jérémie
El Albani, Abderrazak
Bekker, Andrey
Somogyi, Andrea
Bankole, Olabode M.
Macchiarelli, Roberto
Meunier, Alain
Riboulleau, Armelle
Reynaud, Jean-Yves
Konhauser, Kurt O.
Microbially induced potassium enrichment in Paleoproterozoic shales and implications for reverse weathering on early Earth
title Microbially induced potassium enrichment in Paleoproterozoic shales and implications for reverse weathering on early Earth
title_full Microbially induced potassium enrichment in Paleoproterozoic shales and implications for reverse weathering on early Earth
title_fullStr Microbially induced potassium enrichment in Paleoproterozoic shales and implications for reverse weathering on early Earth
title_full_unstemmed Microbially induced potassium enrichment in Paleoproterozoic shales and implications for reverse weathering on early Earth
title_short Microbially induced potassium enrichment in Paleoproterozoic shales and implications for reverse weathering on early Earth
title_sort microbially induced potassium enrichment in paleoproterozoic shales and implications for reverse weathering on early earth
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6572813/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31209248
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10620-3
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