Chinese Journal of Nature ›› 2014, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (6): 431-436.

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Reconstruction of past nitrogen biogeochemical cycle in the ancient oceans with#br# nitrogen isotopes

HONG Yi-guo①, XU Xiang-rong②, YUE Wei-zhong③   

  1. ①Professor, ③Associate Professor, State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China; ② Professor, Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China
  • Online:2014-12-25 Published:2015-04-13

Abstract: The earliest nitrogen cycle on the earth was controlled by both atmospheric reactions and geological processes. Approximately 2.7 billion years ago, a linked suite of microbial processes evolved to be the most crucial driving force to control the nitrogen transformation, resulting in the current modern nitrogen cycling model. There is a different isotope effect associated with different microbial metabolism and this signal of isotope fractionation is reserved in the palaeobios. Therefore, nitrogen biogeochemical cycle in ancient oceans could be reconstructed by analyzing the stable isotopic ratio of nitrogen in the palaeobios.