Anoxic photochemical weathering of pyrite on Archean continents

Author:

Hao Jihua12ORCID,Liu Winnie3ORCID,Goff Jennifer L.3ORCID,Steadman Jeffrey A.4ORCID,Large Ross R.4,Falkowski Paul G.13ORCID,Yee Nathan35ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.

2. CAS Key Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and Environments, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.

3. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.

4. CODES, Centre for Ore Deposit and Earth Sciences, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS 7001, Australia.

5. Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.

Abstract

Sulfur is an essential element of life that is assimilated by Earth’s biosphere through the chemical breakdown of pyrite. On the early Earth, pyrite weathering by atmospheric oxygen was severely limited, and low marine sulfate concentrations persisted for much of the Archean eon. Here, we show an anoxic photochemical mechanism of pyrite weathering that could have provided substantial amounts of sulfate to the oceans as continents formed in the late Archean. Pyrite grains suspended in anoxic ferrous iron solutions produced millimolar sulfate concentrations when irradiated with ultraviolet light. The Fe 2+ (aq) was photooxidized, which, in turn, led to the chemical oxidation of pyritic sulfur. Additional experiments conducted with 2.68 Ga shale demonstrated that photochemically derived ferric iron oxidizes and dissolves sedimentary pyrite during chemical weathering. The results suggest that before the rise of atmospheric oxygen, oxidative pyrite weathering on Archean continents was controlled by the exposure of land to sunlight.

Publisher

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Subject

Multidisciplinary

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