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Reconstructing Earth's surface oxidation across the Archean-Proterozoic transition

¹State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry, Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang 550002, China
²Geologisch-Paläontologisches Institut der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Corrensstraße 24, 48149 Münster, Germany
³Department of Geology and Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
⁴Paleoproterozoic Mineralization Research Group, Department of Geology, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, 2006 Johannesburg, South Africa
⁵Total E&P, Ave Larribau, F-64018 Pau, France
⁶Institut für Mineralogie, TU Bergakademie Freiberg, 09596 Freiberg, Germany
⁷Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and GEOTOP UQAM-McGill, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2A7, Canada
⁸Department of Geology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
⁹Department of Geological Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2, Canada
¹⁰Department of Geological Sciences, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403, USA

Correspondence: *E-mail: guoqingjun{at}vip.skleg.cn.

The Archean-Proterozoic transition is characterized by the widespread deposition of organic-rich shale, sedimentary iron formation, glacial diamictite, and marine carbonates recording profound carbon isotope anomalies, but notably lacks bedded evaporites. All deposits reflect environmental changes in oceanic and atmospheric redox states, in part associated with Earth's earliest ice ages. Time-series data for multiple sulfur isotopes from carbonate-associated sulfate as well as sulfides in sediments of the Transvaal Supergroup, South Africa, capture the concomitant buildup of sulfate in the ocean and the loss of atmospheric mass-independent sulfur isotope fractionation. In phase with sulfur is the earliest recorded positive carbon isotope anomaly, convincingly linking these environmental perturbations to the Great Oxidation Event (ca. 2.3 Ga).