Methane is thought to have been an important greenhouse gas during the Archean, although its potential warming has found be limited at high concentrations due shortwave absorption. We use Met Office Unified Model, a general circulation model, further explore climatic effect of different Archean methane concentrations. Surface peaks pressure ratio pCH4:pCO2 approximately 0.1, reaching maximum up...

Understanding the thermodynamic function of life may shed light on its origin. Life, as are all irreversible processes, is contingent on entropy production. Entropy production is a measure of the rate of the tendency of Nature to explore available microstates. The most important irreversible process generating entropy in the biosphere and, thus, facilitating this exploration, is the absorption ...

Lake Matano, Indonesia, is a stratified anoxic lake with iron-rich waters that has been used as an analogue for the Archean and early Proterozoic oceans. Past studies of Lake Matano report large amounts of methane production, with as much as 80% of primary production degraded via methanogenesis. Low δ(13)C values of DIC in the lake are difficult to reconcile with this notion, as fractionation d...

The initial melting of mantle plumes produced unparalleled volumes of lava that formed large igneous provinces (LIPs). These events were sometimes so large that they triggered catastrophic mass extinctions and oceanic anoxic events. Global tomography and numerical models suggest that mantle plume occurrences are closely linked to the margins of the large low shear velocity provinces (LLSVPs) lo...

The discovery of evidence indicative of life in a Martian meteorite has led to an increase in interest in astrobiology. As a result of this discovery, and the ensuing controversy, it has become apparent that our knowledge of the early development of life on Earth is limited. Archean stratigraphic successions containing evidence of Earth's early biosphere are well preserved in the Pilbara Craton...

Garnet-whole rock and garnet-mineral isochrons were determined on granulite facies gneisses and amphibolites from the Archean Pikwitonei Granulite Domain of the Superior Province, and the Proterozoic Central Gneiss Belt and Adirondack Highlands of the Grenville orogen. The Sm-Nd ages obtained from Archean garnets 0.1-0.5 cm in length are 30-110 Ma younger than the U-Pb ages obtained on the same...

This review of the current knowledge of impact spherule layers in the Barberton greenstone belt, together with new petrographic, geochemical, and field data on a number of impact and volcanic spherical particle horizons, highlight a number of problems with the proposition of frequent and large meteorite impacts during mid-Archean times. Field data indicate that some of the four previously propo...