Toppling the Boring Billion: Biomarkers, orbital cycles and primordial life

推翻无聊的十亿人：生物标记、轨道周期和原始生命

• 批准号: DP160100607
• 负责人: Prof Jochen Brocks
• 金额: $ 28.89万
• 依托单位: The Australian National University
• 依托单位国家: 澳大利亚
• 项目类别: Discovery Projects
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 澳大利亚
• 起止时间: 2016-01-01 至 2019-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://dataportal.arc.gov.au/RGS/Web/Grants/DP160100607
• 关键词: Toppling; Boring; Billion; Biomarkers; orbital

This project aims to discover microbiological processes involved in ore formation in order to understand how zinc and lead minerals formed in the sediments of Australia’s ancient seas. The apparent ‘Boring Billion’ – the geological period 1800 to 800 million years ago – may have harboured seas of fluctuating colours. Fossil biomolecules, unearthed from 1.6 billion years old sediments, draw a picture of ancient seas oscillating between blooms of purple and green bacteria, with waters rapidly alternating between toxic and sulphidic and rich in dissolved iron. Based on these observations, the project aims to discover the dynamic nature of primordial ecosystems, investigate how ancient seas were controlled by the Earth’s orbit around the sun, and explore how microorganisms may have formed the world’s largest zinc deposits.

该项目旨在发现与矿石形成有关的微生物过程，以了解澳大利亚古代海洋沉积物中锌和铅矿物的形成方式。显而易见的“十亿”（1800至8亿年前的地质时期）可能会占据着波动的颜色。从16亿年历史的沉积物中发掘出来的化石生物分子，绘制了紫色和绿色细菌血液之间古老的海洋振荡的图片，水域在有毒与硫化物之间迅速改变，并在溶解的铁中富裕。基于这些观察结果，该项目旨在发现原始生态系统的动态性质，研究如何由地球围绕太阳轨道控制古老的海洋，并探讨微生物可能如何形成世界上最大的锌沉积物。