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When using pyrite to understand Earth’s ocean and atmosphere: Think local, not global
Shallow water at the edge of the Pacific Ocean reflects cloudy morning skies at Moeraki Boulders Beach, on the South Island of New Zealand. (Image: Shutterstock)
February 26, 2021 SHARE
The ocean floor is vast and varied, making up more than 70% of the Earth’s surface. Scientists have long used information from sediments at the bottom of the ocean layers of rock and microbial muck to reconstruct the conditions in oceans of the past.
Fike
These reconstructions are important for understanding how and when oxygen became available in Earth’s atmosphere and ultimately increased to the levels that support life as we know it today.
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The ocean floor is vast and varied, making up more than 70% of the Earth s surface. Scientists have long used information from sediments at the bottom of the ocean layers of rock and microbial muck to reconstruct the conditions in oceans of the past.
These reconstructions are important for understanding how and when oxygen became available in Earth s atmosphere and ultimately increased to the levels that support life as we know it today.
Yet reconstructions that rely on signals from sedimentary rocks but ignore the impact of local sedimentary processes do so at their own peril, according to geoscientists including David Fike in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.