NanoSIMS: Insights to biogenicity and syngeneity of Archaean carbonaceous structures

Oehler, Dorothy Z.; Robert, François; Walter, Malcolm R.; Sugitani, Kenichiro; Allwood, Abigail; Meibom, Anders; Mostefaoui, S.; Selo, M.; Thomen, A.; Gibson, E. K.

doi:10.1016/j.precamres.2009.01.001

Cited by 83 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…N/C atomic ratios determined by NanoSIMS on organic-walled microfossils from the 0.8 Gyr-old Bitter Springs, the 3.0 Gyr-old Farrel Quarzite and the 3.4 Gyr-old Strelley Pool Formations (Oehler et al, 2009(Oehler et al, , 2010 are coherent with bulk N/C atomic ratio measured on formations of similar ages (Fig. 6).…”

Section: Towards a Framework To Evaluate The Significance Of In Situ supporting

confidence: 72%

“…Consequently, it has also been used as a proxy for the geochemical preservation at the scale of individual Precambrian microfossils (Oehler et al, 2009(Oehler et al, , 2010Alleon et al, 2016). As stressed before, α N values did not allow any distinction of precursors and degradation effects among the organic-walled microfossil populations investigated.…”

Section: Towards a Framework To Evaluate The Significance Of In Situ mentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Even if this geochemical pattern has been addressed at the scale of bulk OM (see Vandenbroucke and Largeau, 2007 and references therein), it remains poorly documented at the scale of individual microfossils. Indeed, only a few studies have dealt with the characterization of the elemental and isotopic compositions of individual Precambrian microfossils (House et al, 2000;Kaufman and Xiao, 2003;Oehler et al, 2009Oehler et al, , 2010Alleon et al, 2016;Delarue et al, 2017), despite the potential crucial linking of geochemical with morphological preservation states to assess the biogenicity of microfossils through the distinction of various biological OM precursors, and of degradation patterns of pristine biological signature(s) (Alleon et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Apart from stable isotope analysis, NanoSIMS has so far been mainly used to investigate the distribution of "organic elements" such as C or N across Precambrian organic-walled microfossils (Oehler et al, 2006;Wacey et al, 2010;McLoughlin et al, 2011;Peng et al, 2016). In parallel, it has been demonstrated that the emission of secondary ionic species used to monitor elements such as C or N can also be quantitatively associated with the geochemical elemental composition of both bulk OM (Thomen et al, 2014;Alleon et al, 2016) and individual organicwalled microfossils (Oehler et al, 2009(Oehler et al, , 2010Delarue et al, 2017). For instance, the 12 C 14 N − / 12 C 2 − secondary molecular ion ratio allows the determination of the N/C atomic ratio (Thomen et al, 2014), which is often used as a proxy for OM degradation during early diagenesis (Watanabe et al, 1997;Beaumont and Robert, 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Can NanoSIMS probe quantitatively the geochemical composition of ancient organic-walled microfossils? A case study from the early Neoproterozoic Liulaobei Formation

Delarue

Robert

Tartèse

et al. 2018

Precambrian Research

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Assessing the biogenicity of Precambrian putative remnants of life requires solid criteria. Among possible criteria, searching for evidence of pristine biological signatures and identifying various biological organic matter (OM) precursors in close association with microfossil morphology are of interest. Nano-scale Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (NanoSIMS) can provide a quantitative geochemical proxy at the scale of the individual microfossil but its use has remained limited because of potential analytical biases related to matrix effects and microtopography that may result in inaccurate NanoSIMS-derived measurement. No study so far has assessed whether these potential analytical biases were strong enough to preclude any identification of pristine OM degradation products and of organic precursors in ancient sediments. In this study, we characterized the geochemical composition of organic-walled microfossils from the early Neoproterozoic Liulaobei Formation in North China using NanoSIMS. The 12 CH − / 12 C 2 − ionic ratio allows us to distinguish filament from spheroid acritarchs, revealing the co-occurrence of two distinct pristine OM signatures that differ by their H and/or aliphatic contents. In addition, NanoSIMS data show that morphological degradation was tightly linked to a loss of H and/or hydrogenated organic compounds in spheroid acritarchs. In contrast, in situ N/C atomic ratios are homogeneous across all organic-walled microfossils studied. Although highly coherent with Proterozoic N/C atomic ratios from the literature, such homogeneity may alternatively reflect (i) a similar N content for different organic precursors or (ii) an extensive homogenization related to early degradation. Overall, these data obtained on microfossils from the Proterozoic Liulaobei Formation are the first to demonstrate that the quantitative capability of NanoSIMS can be used to track ancient OM precursors and to probe the effects of degradation on pristine OM. These findings open up tremendous perspectives and put forward new criteria for assessing the biogenicity of the putative early traces of life found in Archean metasediments.

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Section: Towards a Framework To Evaluate The Significance Of In Situ supporting

confidence: 72%

Section: Towards a Framework To Evaluate The Significance Of In Situ mentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Can NanoSIMS probe quantitatively the geochemical composition of ancient organic-walled microfossils? A case study from the early Neoproterozoic Liulaobei Formation

Delarue

Robert

Tartèse

et al. 2018

Precambrian Research

Self Cite

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“…Most of the oldest traces of life are indeed still debated. The advance of cutting edge technologies, such as Raman spectromicroscopy (Bernard et al 2008;Schopf and Kudryavtsev 2009), transmission electron microscopy (e.g., Lepot et al 2008), focused ion beam milling (Wirth 2009), synchrotron-based X-ray microscopy (e.g., Lepot et al 2009a;Obst et al 2009), and NanoSIMS (e.g., Oehler et al 2009), provides analyses of mineral and organic matter down to the nanoscale; this should help in achieving that goal. Second, experimental taphonomy can be developed further, inspired by studies of metazoans (e.g., Briggs and Kear 1993).…”

Section: Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%