Hickman-Lewis, Keyron and Cuadros, J. and Yi, K. and Hong, T.E. and Byeon, M. and Jang, J.H. and Choi, M.Y. and Seo, Y.K. and Najorka, J. and Montgomery, W. and Matlak, K. and Wolanin, B. and Smith, C.L. and Cavalazzi, B. (2025) Aluminous phyllosilicates promote exceptional nanoscale preservation of biogeochemical heterogeneities in Archaean siliciclastic microbial mats. Nature Communications 16 (2726), ISSN 2041-1723.
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Hickman-Lewis et al. (2025) Mosquito Creek.pdf - Published Version of Record Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (7MB) |
Abstract
Exceptional preservation of biogeochemical complexity in the Precambrian is largely limited to cherts, phosphates and shales; however, ancient fossils, including microbial mats and microbially induced sedimentary structures, also occur, more rarely, in poorly sorted, coarse-grained siliciclastics. The precise micromechanics by which exceptional retention of organic microbial traces occur within such rocks over billion-year geological timescales remain poorly understood. Herein, we explore the micro–nano-scale characteristics of microbial mats preserved in ~2.9 billion-year-old sandstones from the Mosquito Creek Formation (Pilbara, Australia) using a suite of advanced spatially correlated microscopy and geochemistry techniques. We demonstrate that sedimentary horizons rich in K–Al-phyllosilicates exhibit exceptional and unexpected preservation of biogeochemical complexity despite the age and metamorphic grade of the sequence. We propose that authigenic phyllosilicates intercalated with microbial kerogen at the nanoscale promote the preservation of nanoscopic domains of poorly ordered amorphous and turbostratic carbonaceous materials through pressure compensation associated with the kaolinite–illite transition during burial diagenesis and metamorphism, impeding the maturation of organic materials. Elucidating organic preservation in coarse-grained siliciclastics opens new avenues for biosignature searches both in ancient Earth sequences and on Mars, where similar phyllosilicate-bearing sandstones have been collected by the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover for near-future sample return.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Natural Sciences |
| Research Centres and Institutes: | Planetary Sciences, Centre for (CPS) |
| Depositing User: | Keyron Hickman-Lewis |
| Date Deposited: | 26 Mar 2025 12:41 |
| Last Modified: | 01 Apr 2025 00:54 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/55236 |
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