The Accumulation of Cosmogenic Chlorine-36 in Rocks: a Method for Surface Exposure Dating

A Critical Assessment of the Congruency between Environmental DNA and Palaeoecology for the Biodiversity Monitoring and Palaeoenvironmental Reconstruction

The present study suggests that standardized methodology, careful site selection, and stratigraphy are essential for investigating ancient ecosystems in order to evaluate biodiversity and DNA-based time series. Based on specific keywords, this investigation reviewed 146 publications using the SCOPUS, Web of Science (WoS), PUBMED, and Google Scholar databases. Results indicate that environmental deoxyribose nucleic acid (eDNA) can be pivotal for assessing and conserving ecosystems. Our review revealed that in the last 12 years (January 2008–July 2021), 63% of the studies based on eDNA have been reported from aquatic ecosystems, 25% from marine habitats, and 12% from terrestrial environments. Out of studies conducted in aquatic systems using the environmental DNA (eDNA) technique, 63% of the investigations have been reported from freshwater ecosystems, with an utmost focus on fish diversity (40%). Further analysis of the literature reveals that during the same period, 24% of the investigations using the environmental DNA technique were carried out on invertebrates, 8% on mammals, 7% on plants, 6% on reptiles, and 5% on birds. The results obtained clearly indicate that the environmental DNA technique has a clear-cut edge over other biodiversity monitoring methods. Furthermore, we also found that eDNA, in conjunction with different dating techniques, can provide better insight into deciphering eco-evolutionary feedback. Therefore, an attempt has been made to offer extensive information on the application of dating methods for different taxa present in diverse ecosystems. Last, we provide suggestions and elucidations on how to overcome the caveats and delineate some of the research avenues that will likely shape this field in the near future. This paper aims to identify the gaps in environmental DNA (eDNA) investigations to help researchers, ecologists, and decision-makers to develop a holistic understanding of environmental DNA (eDNA) and its utility as a palaeoenvironmental contrivance.

Formation of Magnesium Carbonates on Earth and Implications for Mars

Magnesium carbonates have been identified within the landing site of the Perseverance rover mission. This study reviews terrestrial analog environments and textural, mineral assemblage, isotopic, and elemental analyses that have been applied to establish formation conditions of magnesium carbonates. Magnesium carbonates form in five distinct settings: ultramafic rock-hosted veins, the matrix of carbonated peridotite, nodules in soil, alkaline lake, and playa deposits, and as diagenetic replacements within lime-and dolostones. Dominant textures include fine-grained or microcrystalline veins, nodules, and crusts. Microbial influences on formation are recorded in thrombolites, stromatolites, crinkly, and pustular laminites, spheroids, and filamentous microstructures. Mineral assemblages, fluid inclusions, and carbon, oxygen, magnesium, and clumped isotopes of carbon and oxygen have been used to determine the sources of carbon, magnesium, and fluid for magnesium carbonates as well as their temperatures of formation. Isotopic signatures in ultramafic rock-hosted magnesium carbonates reveal that they form by either low-temperature meteoric water infiltration and alteration, hydrothermal alteration, or metamorphic processes. Isotopic compositions of lacustrine magnesium carbonate record precipitation from lake water, evaporation processes, and ambient formation temperatures. Assessment of these features with similar analytical techniques applied to returned Martian samples can establish whether carbonates on ancient Mars were formed at high or low temperature conditions in the surface or subsurface through abiotic or biotic processes. The timing of carbonate formation processes could be constrained by 147Sm-143Nd isochron, U-Pb concordia, 207Pb-206Pb isochron radiometric dating as well as 3He, 21Ne, 22Ne, or 36Ar surface exposure dating of returned Martian magnesium carbonate samples.

Accelerator mass spectrometry for measurement of long-lived radioisotopes

Particle accelerators, such as those built for research in nuclear physics, can also be used together with magnetic and electrostatic mass analyzers to measure rare isotopes at very low abundance ratios. All molecular ions can be eliminated when accelerated to energies of millions of electron volts. Some atomic isobars can be eliminated with the use of negative ions; others can be separated at high energies by measuring their rate of energy loss in a detector. The long-lived radioisotopes (10)Be, (14)C,(26)A1, 36Cl, and (129)1 can now be measured in small natural samples having isotopic abundances in the range 10(-12) to 10(- 5) and as few as 10(5) atoms. In the past few years, research applications of accelerator mass spectrometry have been concentrated in the earth sciences (climatology, cosmochemistry, environmental chemistry, geochronology, glaciology, hydrology, igneous petrogenesis, minerals exploration, sedimentology, and volcanology), in anthropology and archeology (radiocarbon dating), and in physics (searches for exotic particles and measurement of halflives). In addition, accelerator mass spectrometry may become an important tool for the materials and biological sciences.

Ages of prehistoric earthquakes revealed by cosmogenic chlorine-36 in a bedrock fault scarp at hebgen lake

Cosmogenic chlorine-36 reveals dates of the multiple prehistoric earthquakes that have produced a scarp on the Hebgen Lake fault. Apparent chlorine-36 ages are stratigraphically correct, follow a predicted theoretical pattern, and produce geologically reasonable model ages of 24, 20, 7.0, 2.6, 1.7, and 0.4 thousand years ago. This result demonstrates the feasibility of using cosmogenic chlorine-36 to extract paleoearthquake records from bedrock fault scarps.

Age and Duration of Weathering by 40K-40Ar and 40Ar/39Ar Analysis of Potassium-Manganese Oxides

Supergene cryptomelane [K(1-2)(Mn(3+)Mn(4+))(8)O(16). chiH(2)O] samples from deeply weathered pegmatites in southeastern Brazil subjected to (40)K-(40)Ar and (40)Ar/(39)Ar analysis yielded (40)K-(40)Ar dates ranging from 10.1 +/- 0.5 to 5.6 +/- 0.2 Ma (million years ago). Laser-probe (40)Ar/(39)Ar step-heating of the two most disparate samples yielded plateau dates of 9.94 +/- 0.05 and 5.59 +/- 0.10 Ma, corresponding, within 2 sigma, to the (40)K-(40)Ar dates. The results imply that deep weathering profiles along the eastern Brazilian margin do not reflect present climatic conditions but are the result of a long-term process that was already advanced by the late Miocene. Weathering ages predate pulses of continental sedimentation along the eastern Brazilian margin and suggest that there was a time lag between weathering and erosion processes and sedimentation processes.

Cosmogenic Chlorine-36 Chronology for Glacial Deposits at Bloody Canyon, Eastern Sierra Nevada

Deposits from mountain glaciers provide an important record of Quaternary climatic fluctuations but have proved difficult to date directly. A chronology has been obtained for glacial deposits at Bloody Canyon, California, by measurement ofthe accumulation of chlorine-36 produced by cosmic rays in boulders exposed on moraine crests. The accumulation ofchlorine-36 indicates that episodes of glaciation occurred at about 21, 24, 65, 115, 145, and 200 ka (thousand years ago). Although the timing of the glaciations correlates well with peaks of global ice volume inferred from the marine oxygen isotope record, the relative magnitudes differ markedly. The lengths of the moraines dating from 115 ka and 65 ka show that the early glacial episodes were more extensive than those during the later Wisconsin and indicate that the transition from interglacial to full glacial conditions was rapid.