Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufm.v12b..06r&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #V12B-06
Other
0424 Biosignatures And Proxies, 1020 Composition Of The Continental Crust, 1041 Stable Isotope Geochemistry (0454, 4870), 9623 Archean
Scientific paper
The Terrestrial Fractionation Line (TFL) for oxygen isotopes is defined by 17O/16O and 18O/16O analyses of meteoric waters, seawater, sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks and constituent minerals. Interlaboratory measurements of the slope of the TFL on a plot of d18O vs. d17O revealed eclogitic garnets with a slope of 0.526 and hydrothermal quartz of 0.524 from rocks younger than 0.8 Ga (Giga years before present). New measurements show Archean metamorphic rocks and minerals from Barberton, (3.2 Ga, S. Africa), Isua (3.8 Ga, Greenland), and Acasta (4.0 Ga, Canada) have a slope of 0.524 +/- 0.002 (95% confidence, MSWD = 0.66). Analysis of Ag3PO4 prepared from apatite mineral separates from Isua meta-sediments gives a slope of 0.509 +/- 0.022 (95% confidence, MSWD = 0.59). Taken at face value, steeper slopes on a d17O vs. d18O diagram indicate an approach towards isotope exchange equilibrium. Lower slopes are expected when isotope fractionation is kinetically controlled. The lower slope of 0.509 for Isua apatite suggests that the formation of orthophosphate was kinetically controlled. Kinetic fractionations are known to occur during catalysis of reactions by enzymes secreted by microbes. Enzymatic catalysis confers an advantage on organisms because energy-producing reactions may be induced to occur at lower temperature conditions more accessible to the organism. May it be definitively concluded that enzymatic catalysis was responsible for the measured 0.509 slope? No, abiotic kinetic fractionation cannot be disproven with existing data. The preparation of Ag3PO4 from apatite may have introduced kinetic fractionation as an analytical artifact. Conclusions fully supported by the data suggest: (1) Mixing accompanying the violent birth of the Earth- Moon system had already succeeded in establishing Earth's current oxygen isotope composition by 4.0 Ga; and (2) No trace of an episode of late heavy meteorite bombardment remains in the oxygen isotope compositions of Earth's oldest rocks.
Bao Huiming
Blake Ruth E.
Bowring Steve
Komiya Tsuyoshi
Rosing Minik
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