2001/11/02 by Tim K. Lowenstein, Michael N. Timofeeff, Sean T. Brennan +2 · 572 citations
Materials Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Chemistry · #Calcium Carbonate Crystallization and Inhibition #Groundwater and Isotope Geochemistry #Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils #Seawater #Evaporite #Phanerozoic #Geology #Calcite #Aragonite #Precambrian #Carbonate #Geochemistry #Cretaceous #Seafloor spreading #Paleontology #Fluid inclusions #Mineralogy #Oceanography #Chemistry #Sedimentary rock #Hydrothermal circulation #Cenozoic
paper · doi:10.1126/science.1064280
published in Science 294(5544), 1086-1088 (American Association for the Advancement of Science)
openalex publication_date 2001/11/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Systematic changes in the chemistry of evaporated seawater contained in primary fluid inclusions in marine halites indicate that seawater chemistry has fluctuated during the Phanerozoic. The fluctuations are in phase with oscillations in seafloor spreading rates, volcanism, global sea level, and the primary mineralogies of marine limestones and evaporites. The data suggest that seawater had high Mg2+/Ca2+ ratios (>2.5) and relatively high Na+ concentrations during the Late Precambrian [544 to 543 million years ago (Ma)], Permian (258 to 251 Ma), and Tertiary through the present (40 to 0 Ma), when aragonite and MgSO4 salts were the dominant marine precipitates. Conversely, seawater had low Mg2+/Ca2+ ratios (<2.3) and relatively low Na+ concentrations during the Cambrian (540 to 520 Ma), Silurian (440 to 418 Ma), and Cretaceous (124 to 94 Ma), when calcite was the dominant nonskeletal carbonate and K-, Mg-, and Ca-bearing chloride salts, were the only potash evaporites.