The destruction of these ancient mountains may have fueled Earth’s biggest evolution booms.

Twice in our planet’s history, colossal mountain ranges that towered as tall as the Himalayas and stretched thousands of miles farther reared their craggy heads out of the Earth, splitting ancient supercontinents in two.

Geologists call them the “supermountains.”

“There’s nothing like these two supermountains today,” Ziyi Zhu, a postdoctoral student at The Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra and lead author of a new study on the mountain majesties, said in a statement. “It’s not just their height — if you can imagine the 1,500 miles (2,400 km) long Himalayas repeated three or four times, you get an idea of the scale.”

These prehistoric peaks were more than just an awesome sight; according to new research by Zhu and her colleagues published in the Feb. 15 issue of the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, the formation and destruction of these two gargantuan ranges may have also fueled two of the biggest evolutionary boom times in our planet’s history — the first appearance of complex cells roughly 2 billion years ago, and the Cambrian explosion of marine life 541 million years ago.

It’s likely that, as these enormous mountain ranges eroded, they dumped huge amounts of nutrients into the sea, speeding up energy production and supercharging evolution, the researchers wrote.

In their new study, the researchers examined zircons with low amounts of lutetium — a rare Earth element that only forms at the base of high mountains. The data revealed two “spikes” of extensive supermountain formation in Earth’s history — one lasting from about 2 billion to 1.8 billion years ago, and the second lasting from 650 million to 500 million years ago.

Prior studies had hinted at the existence of that second epic range — known as the Transgondwanan Supermountain, because it crossed the vast supercontinent of Gondwana (a single giant continent that contained the landmasses of modern Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica, Indian and the Arabian Peninsula). However, the earlier supermountain — called Nuna Supermountain, after an earlier supercontinent — had never been detected before now.

As both mountains eroded away, they would have dumped tremendous amounts of nutrients like iron and phosphorus into the sea through the water cycle, the researchers said. These nutrients could have significantly sped up biological cycles in the ocean, driving evolution to greater complexity. In addition to this nutrient spillover, the eroding mountains may have also released oxygen into the atmosphere, making Earth even more hospitable to complex life.

The formation of the Nuna Supermountain, for example, coincides with the appearance of Earth’s very first eukaryotic cells — cells containing a nucleus that eventually evolved into plants, animals and fungi. Meanwhile, the Transgondwanan Supermountain would have been eroding just as another evolutionary boom unfolded in Earth’s seas.

“The Transgondwanan Supermountain coincides with the appearance of the first large animals 575 million years ago and the Cambrian explosion 45 million years later, when most animal groups appeared in the fossil record,” Zhu said.

In their research, the team also confirmed previous studies that found mountain formation screeched to a halt on Earth from about 1.7 billion to 750 million years ago. Geologists refer to this period as the “boring billion,” because life in Earth’s seas seemingly stopped evolving (or at least evolved achingly slowly), Live Science previously reported. Some scientists hypothesize that the lack of new mountain formation may have prevented new nutrients from leaking into the oceans during this time, effectively starving sea creatures and stalling their evolution.

While more research is needed to draw an airtight connection between supermountains and supercharged evolution on Earth, this study seems to confirm that our planet’s most productive biological booms occurred in the shadows of some truly colossal mountains.

https://www.livescience.com/supermountains-drove-evolution-on-earth

Very interesting, ta.

PermeateFree said:

The destruction of these ancient mountains may have fueled Earth’s biggest evolution booms.

Twice in our planet’s history, colossal mountain ranges that towered as tall as the Himalayas and stretched thousands of miles farther reared their craggy heads out of the Earth, splitting ancient supercontinents in two.

Geologists call them the “supermountains.”

“There’s nothing like these two supermountains today,” Ziyi Zhu, a postdoctoral student at The Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra and lead author of a new study on the mountain majesties, said in a statement. “It’s not just their height — if you can imagine the 1,500 miles (2,400 km) long Himalayas repeated three or four times, you get an idea of the scale.”

These prehistoric peaks were more than just an awesome sight; according to new research by Zhu and her colleagues published in the Feb. 15 issue of the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, the formation and destruction of these two gargantuan ranges may have also fueled two of the biggest evolutionary boom times in our planet’s history — the first appearance of complex cells roughly 2 billion years ago, and the Cambrian explosion of marine life 541 million years ago.

It’s likely that, as these enormous mountain ranges eroded, they dumped huge amounts of nutrients into the sea, speeding up energy production and supercharging evolution, the researchers wrote.

In their new study, the researchers examined zircons with low amounts of lutetium — a rare Earth element that only forms at the base of high mountains. The data revealed two “spikes” of extensive supermountain formation in Earth’s history — one lasting from about 2 billion to 1.8 billion years ago, and the second lasting from 650 million to 500 million years ago.

Prior studies had hinted at the existence of that second epic range — known as the Transgondwanan Supermountain, because it crossed the vast supercontinent of Gondwana (a single giant continent that contained the landmasses of modern Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica, Indian and the Arabian Peninsula). However, the earlier supermountain — called Nuna Supermountain, after an earlier supercontinent — had never been detected before now.

As both mountains eroded away, they would have dumped tremendous amounts of nutrients like iron and phosphorus into the sea through the water cycle, the researchers said. These nutrients could have significantly sped up biological cycles in the ocean, driving evolution to greater complexity. In addition to this nutrient spillover, the eroding mountains may have also released oxygen into the atmosphere, making Earth even more hospitable to complex life.

The formation of the Nuna Supermountain, for example, coincides with the appearance of Earth’s very first eukaryotic cells — cells containing a nucleus that eventually evolved into plants, animals and fungi. Meanwhile, the Transgondwanan Supermountain would have been eroding just as another evolutionary boom unfolded in Earth’s seas.

“The Transgondwanan Supermountain coincides with the appearance of the first large animals 575 million years ago and the Cambrian explosion 45 million years later, when most animal groups appeared in the fossil record,” Zhu said.

In their research, the team also confirmed previous studies that found mountain formation screeched to a halt on Earth from about 1.7 billion to 750 million years ago. Geologists refer to this period as the “boring billion,” because life in Earth’s seas seemingly stopped evolving (or at least evolved achingly slowly), Live Science previously reported. Some scientists hypothesize that the lack of new mountain formation may have prevented new nutrients from leaking into the oceans during this time, effectively starving sea creatures and stalling their evolution.

While more research is needed to draw an airtight connection between supermountains and supercharged evolution on Earth, this study seems to confirm that our planet’s most productive biological booms occurred in the shadows of some truly colossal mountains.

https://www.livescience.com/supermountains-drove-evolution-on-earth

Thanks.

> In their new study, the researchers examined zircons with low amounts of lutetium — a rare Earth element that only forms at the base of high mountains. The data revealed two “spikes” of extensive supermountain formation in Earth’s history — one lasting from about 2 billion to 1.8 billion years ago, and the second lasting from 650 million to 500 million years ago.

> Prior studies had hinted at the existence of that second epic range — known as the Transgondwanan Supermountain, because it crossed the vast supercontinent of Gondwana (a single giant continent that contained the landmasses of modern Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica, Indian and the Arabian Peninsula). However, the earlier supermountain — called Nuna Supermountain, after an earlier supercontinent — had never been detected before now.

Nice. But weird. If lutetium is generated at the base of huge mountains, then why are they looking for low lutetium concentrations? Doens’t make sense.

Let’s look up the technical article.

Abstract at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012821×22000279?dgcid=author

Ah, got it. At the base of high mountains, garnets compete with zircons for the sopping up of lutetium. So essientially they’re using garnet formation as an indicator of the presence of high mountains. But, because garnets wear out much faster than zircons, it’s the influence of garnet formation on zircon formation that they’re looking for.

They’re looking at river zircons on all continents.

Now to try and understand how the heck they measure “biovolume”.

> the two periods of supermountain formation are associated with voluminous sedimentation

That fits.

> Increasing ocean phosphoprus

Yep.

> Enhanced carbon production lead to increases in atmospheric oxygen

Ah, no. First of all, supermountain formation wouldn’t tend to increase carbon production and second, if it did, then that excess carbon would drag oxygen out of the atmosphere as CO2 and CaCO3 lowering atmospheric oxygen. Unless I read it wrongly and supermountain formation is directly ejecting CO2 into the atmosphere, in which case photosynthesis could lead to higher atmospheric oxygen.

> evaluate whether rapid erosion of supermountains is linked to geochemical and biotic events, such as the disappearance of banded iron formations at 1.85 Ga, the emergence of the first macroscopic organisms (Grypania) at 1.9 Ga, and the radiation of early eukaryotes, which become visible in the fossil record at 1.65 Ga.

Good. Banded iron formations were caused by photosynethesis in cyanobacteria and similar microorganisms. They stopped when surface iron ran out. But supermountain formation and subsequent erosion would bring more iron to the surface, so delaying the cessation of the banded iron formations.