TY - JOUR
T1 - Metabolically diverse primordial microbial communities in Earth’s oldest seafloor-hydrothermal jasper
AU - Papineau, Dominic
AU - She, Zhenbing
AU - Dodd, Matthew S.
AU - Iacoviello, Francesco
AU - Slack, John F.
AU - Hauri, Erik
AU - Shearing, Paul
AU - Little, Crispin T.S.
N1 - Funding Information:
Z.S. and D.P. acknowledge financial support from the National Science Foundation of China (grant no. 42172337), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. XDB26020102), the 111 project of China (grant no. BP0820004), and the State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology (grant no. GBL12001). Author contributions: D.P. designed the research; performed optical microscopy, μRaman, NanoSIMS, EA-IRMS, and FIB-SEM analyses; and wrote the manuscript. Z.S. produced the correlated μRaman-SEM analyses. M.S.D. helped with μRaman analyses. F.I. performed the μCT analyses and processed FIB-BSE images. E.H. helped with NanoSIMS analyses. The manuscript received important contributions from all coauthors, except the late E.H. Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Data
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 The Authors, some rights reserved.
PY - 2022/4
Y1 - 2022/4
N2 - The oldest putative fossils occur as hematite filaments and tubes in jasper-carbonate banded iron formations from the 4280- to 3750-Ma Nuvvuagittuq Supracrustal Belt, Québec. If biological in origin, these filaments might have affinities with modern descendants; however, if abiotic, they could indicate complex prebiotic forms on early Earth. Here, we report images of centimeter-size, autochthonous hematite filaments that are pectinate-branching, parallel-aligned, undulated, and containing Fe2+-oxides. These microstructures are considered microfossils because of their mineral associations and resemblance to younger microfossils, modern Fe-bacteria from hydrothermal environments, and the experimental products of heated Fe-oxidizing bacteria. Additional clusters of irregular hematite ellipsoids could reflect abiotic processes of silicification, producing similar structures and thus yielding an uncertain origin. Millimeter-sized chalcopyrite grains within the jasper-carbonate rocks have 34S- and 33S-enrichments consistent with microbial S-disproportionation and an O2-poor atmosphere. Collectively, the observations suggest a diverse microbial ecosystem on the primordial Earth that may be common on other planetary bodies, including Mars.
AB - The oldest putative fossils occur as hematite filaments and tubes in jasper-carbonate banded iron formations from the 4280- to 3750-Ma Nuvvuagittuq Supracrustal Belt, Québec. If biological in origin, these filaments might have affinities with modern descendants; however, if abiotic, they could indicate complex prebiotic forms on early Earth. Here, we report images of centimeter-size, autochthonous hematite filaments that are pectinate-branching, parallel-aligned, undulated, and containing Fe2+-oxides. These microstructures are considered microfossils because of their mineral associations and resemblance to younger microfossils, modern Fe-bacteria from hydrothermal environments, and the experimental products of heated Fe-oxidizing bacteria. Additional clusters of irregular hematite ellipsoids could reflect abiotic processes of silicification, producing similar structures and thus yielding an uncertain origin. Millimeter-sized chalcopyrite grains within the jasper-carbonate rocks have 34S- and 33S-enrichments consistent with microbial S-disproportionation and an O2-poor atmosphere. Collectively, the observations suggest a diverse microbial ecosystem on the primordial Earth that may be common on other planetary bodies, including Mars.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128270658&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1126/sciadv.abm2296
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.abm2296
M3 - Article
C2 - 35417227
AN - SCOPUS:85128270658
SN - 2375-2548
VL - 8
JO - Science Advances
JF - Science Advances
IS - 15
M1 - eabm2296
ER -