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Shuram Excursion
The Shuram excursion, or Shuram-Wonoka excursion, is a change in δ13C, or in the ratio of carbon-13 to carbon-12, taking place between around 573 and 562 million years ago, during the Ediacaran Period. It was first noticed in the Wonoka Formation in South Australia in 1990 and later in the Shuram Formation in Oman in 1993. It is the largest negative δ13C excursion in Earth history, and recovery took 50 million years, although the apparent magnitude of the excursion may be distorted due to meteoric water diagenesis. It is not known what caused the excursion. The Shuram excursion may have played a role in sparking the rise of animals that resulted later in the Cambrian explosion. The oxygen-consuming Ediacara biota The Ediacaran (; formerly Vendian) biota is a taxonomic period classification that consists of all life forms that were present on Earth during the Ediacaran Period (). These were composed of enigmatic tubular and frond-shaped, mostly sessi ... experienced a radi ...
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δ13C
In geochemistry, paleoclimatology, and paleoceanography ''δ''13C (pronounced "delta c thirteen") is an isotopic signature, a measure of the ratio of stable isotopes 13C : 12C, reported in parts per thousand (per mil, ‰). The measure is also widely used in archaeology for the reconstruction of past diets, particularly to see if marine foods or certain types of plants were consumed The definition is, in per mil: :\delta \ce = \left( \frac - 1 \right) \times 1000 ‰ where the standard is an established reference material. ''δ''13C varies in time as a function of productivity, the signature of the inorganic source, organic carbon burial, and vegetation type. Biological processes preferentially take up the lower mass isotope through kinetic fractionation. However some abiotic processes do the same, methane from hydrothermal vents can be depleted by up to 50%. Reference standard The standard established for carbon-13 work was the Pee Dee Belemnite (PDB) and was based on a Cr ...
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Carbon-13
Carbon-13 (13C) is a natural, stable isotope of carbon with a nucleus containing six protons and seven neutrons. As one of the environmental isotopes, it makes up about 1.1% of all natural carbon on Earth. Detection by mass spectrometry A mass spectrum of an organic compound will usually contain a small peak of one mass unit greater than the apparent molecular ion peak (M) of the whole molecule. This is known as the M+1 peak and comes from the few molecules that contain a 13C atom in place of a 12C. A molecule containing one carbon atom will be expected to have an M+1 peak of approximately 1.1% of the size of the M peak, as 1.1% of the molecules will have a 13C rather than a 12C. Similarly, a molecule containing two carbon atoms will be expected to have an M+1 peak of approximately 2.2% of the size of the M peak, as there is double the previous likelihood that any molecule will contain a 13C atom. In the above, the mathematics and chemistry have been simplified, however it can ...
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Carbon-12
Carbon-12 (12C) is the most abundant of the two stable isotopes of carbon (carbon-13 being the other), amounting to 98.93% of element carbon on Earth; its abundance is due to the triple-alpha process by which it is created in stars. Carbon-12 is of particular importance in its use as the standard from which atomic masses of all nuclides are measured, thus, its atomic mass is exactly 12 daltons by definition. Carbon-12 is composed of 6 protons, 6 neutrons, and 6 electrons. History Before 1959, both the IUPAP and IUPAC used oxygen to define the mole; the chemists defining the mole as the number of atoms of oxygen which had mass 16 g, the physicists using a similar definition but with the oxygen-16 isotope only. The two organizations agreed in 1959/60 to define the mole as follows. ''Mole is the amount of substance of a system which contains as many elementary entities as there are atoms in 12 gram of carbon 12; its symbol is "mol".'' This was adopted by the CIPM (Inte ...
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Ediacaran Period
The Ediacaran Period ( ) is a geological period that spans 96 million years from the end of the Cryogenian Period 635 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Cambrian Period 538.8 Mya. It marks the end of the Proterozoic Eon, and the beginning of the Phanerozoic Eon. It is named after the Ediacara Hills of South Australia. The Ediacaran Period's status as an official geological period was ratified in 2004 by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), making it the first new geological period declared in 120 years. Although the period takes its name from the Ediacara Hills where geologist Reg Sprigg first discovered fossils of the eponymous Ediacaran biota in 1946, the type section is located in the bed of the Enorama Creek within Brachina Gorge in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia, at . The Ediacaran marks the first appearance of widespread multicellular fauna following the end of Snowball Earth glaciation events, the so-called Ediacaran biota, wh ...
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American Journal Of Science
The ''American Journal of Science'' (''AJS'') is the United States of America's longest-running scientific journal, having been published continuously since its conception in 1818 by Professor Benjamin Silliman, who edited and financed it himself. Until 1880, it was also known as the ''American Journal of Science and Arts'', but its focus was always on natural sciences and especially on geology and related subjects. In early years, the journal was often referred to as "Silliman's Journal", and the publication became associated with Yale University due to his long tenure there (1804–1853). The editorship long remained in the family of Professor Silliman, as he was assisted by his son, Benjamin Silliman Jr., from 1838. On the death of the elder Silliman in 1864, he was succeeded as chief editor by his son-in-law, James Dwight Dana, and then from 1895 till 1926 by Dana's son Edward Salisbury Dana. Associate editors included the botanist Asa Gray and the zoologist Louis Agassiz. Th ...
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South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, and second smallest state by population. It has a total of 1.8 million people. Its population is the second most highly centralised in Australia, after Western Australia, with more than 77 percent of South Australians living in the capital Adelaide, or its environs. Other population centres in the state are relatively small; Mount Gambier, the second-largest centre, has a population of 33,233. South Australia shares borders with all of the other mainland states, as well as the Northern Territory; it is bordered to the west by Western Australia, to the north by the Northern Territory, to the north-east by Queensland, to the east by New South Wales, to the south-east by Victoria, and to the south by the Great Australian Bight.M ...
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Precambrian Research
''Precambrian Research'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering the geology of the Earth and its planetary neighbors. It is published by Elsevier and, , the editors-in-chief are V. Pease (Stockholm University) and G.C. Zhao (University of Hong Kong). It was established in 1974. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2013 impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as i ... of 6.023. References External links * * Geology journals Elsevier academic journals English-language journals Publications established in 1974 {{geology-journal-stub ...
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Cambrian Explosion
The Cambrian explosion, Cambrian radiation, Cambrian diversification, or the Biological Big Bang refers to an interval of time approximately in the Cambrian Period when practically all major animal phyla started appearing in the fossil record. It lasted for about 13 – 25 million years and resulted in the divergence of most modern metazoan phyla. The event was accompanied by major diversification in other groups of organisms as well. Before early Cambrian diversification, most organisms were relatively simple, composed of individual cells, or small multicellular organisms, occasionally organized into colonies. As the rate of diversification subsequently accelerated, the variety of life became much more complex, and began to resemble that of today. Almost all present-day animal phyla appeared during this period, including the earliest chordates. A 2019 paper suggests that the timing should be expanded back to include the late Ediacaran, rather than just the n ...
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Ediacara Biota
The Ediacaran (; formerly Vendian) biota is a taxonomic period classification that consists of all life forms that were present on Earth during the Ediacaran Period (). These were composed of enigmatic tubular and frond-shaped, mostly sessile, organisms. Trace fossils of these organisms have been found worldwide, and represent the earliest known complex multicellular organisms. The Ediacaran biota may have undergone evolutionary radiation in a proposed event called the Avalon explosion, . This was after the Earth had thawed from the Cryogenian period's extensive glaciation. This biota largely disappeared with the rapid increase in biodiversity known as the Cambrian explosion. Most of the currently existing body plans of animals first appeared in the fossil record of the Cambrian rather than the Ediacaran. For macroorganisms, the Cambrian biota appears to have almost completely replaced the organisms that dominated the Ediacaran fossil record, although relationships are ...
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Nature Geoscience
''Nature Geoscience'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Nature Publishing Group. The Chief Editor is Tamara Goldin, who took over from Heike Langenberg in February 2020. It was established in January 2008. Scope The journal covers all aspects of the Earth sciences, including theoretical research, modelling, and field work. Significant related work in other fields, such as atmospheric sciences, geology, geophysics, climatology, oceanography, palaeontology, and space science, is also published. Abstracting and indexing The journal is abstracted and indexed by: * '' CAB Abstracts'' * ''Chemical Abstracts Service/CASSI'' * ''Science Citation Index'' * ''Current Contents/Physical, Chemical & Earth Sciences'' * ''GeoRef'' According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2020 impact factor of 16.908. See also * List of scientific journals in earth and atmospheric sciences A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists m ...
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Algal Bloom
An algal bloom or algae bloom is a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae in freshwater or marine water systems. It is often recognized by the discoloration in the water from the algae's pigments. The term ''algae'' encompasses many types of aquatic photosynthetic organisms, both macroscopic multicellular organisms like seaweed and microscopic unicellular organisms like cyanobacteria.  ''Algal bloom'' commonly refers to the rapid growth of microscopic unicellular algae, not macroscopic algae. An example of a macroscopic algal bloom is a kelp forest. Algal blooms are the result of a nutrient, like nitrogen or phosphorus from various sources (for example fertilizer runoff or other forms of nutrient pollution), entering the aquatic system and causing excessive growth of algae. An algal bloom affects the whole ecosystem. Consequences range from the benign feeding of higher trophic levels to more harmful effects like blocking sunlight from reaching other organ ...
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Nature Communications
''Nature Communications'' is a peer-reviewed, open access, scientific journal published by Nature Portfolio since 2010. It is a multidisciplinary journal and it covers the natural sciences, including physics, chemistry, earth sciences, medicine, and biology. The journal has editorial offices in London, Berlin, New York City, and Shanghai. The founding editor-in-chief was Lesley Anson, followed by Joerg Heber, Magdalena Skipper, and Elisa De Ranieri. As of 2022, the editors are Nathalie Le Bot for health and clinical sciences, Stephane Larochelle for biological sciences, Enda Bergin for chemistry and biotechnology, and Prabhjot Saini for physics and earth sciences. Starting October 2014, the journal only accepted submissions from authors willing to pay an article processing charge. Until the end of 2015, part of the published submissions were only available to subscribers. In January 2016, all content became freely accessible. Starting from 2017, the journal offers a deposition ...
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