The Great Oxidation and a Siderian snowball Earth: MIF-S based correlation of Paleoproterozoic glacial epochs

Abstract

Existing correlation schemes between early Paleoproterozoic successions divorce the low-latitude Makganyene glaciation in southern Africa from the Great Oxidation (GO), as recorded by the disappearance of mass-independent fractionation of S-isotopes (MIF-S) in sedimentary sulfide and sulfate minerals. They also suggest a younger age for the GO in southern Africa (~2.3Ga) compared with North America (~2.4Ga), which is physically implausible. A new correlation scheme is proposed in which the Makganyene glaciation is temporally linked to the GO and to the second of three Huronian glaciations in North America, the one with postglacial cap-carbonate. In the new scheme, only three glacial epochs are needed globally, all three are represented in southern Africa, and the second was a circa 2.40Ga snowball Earth coincident with the GO.