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Abstract
YI welcome the "Comment" from Hatert et al. (2021) related to the proposal for an "Evolutionary system of mineralogy" (Hazen 2019) and thank them for their historically informed, conceptually nuanced, and consistently constructive contribution. They offer corrections related to two facets of my paper that seemed unfairly to criticize aspects of the International Mineralogical Association's Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification (IMA-CNMNC) protocols for classifying minerals.
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Abstract
The crystal structure of the unique nickel porphyrin mineral abelsonite, NiC31H32N4, has been solved using direct methods with 2195 independent reflections to a final R-1 = 0.0406. Abelsonite crystallizes in the triclinic space group P (1) over bar, with Z = 1 and unit-cell parameters a = 8.4416(5) angstrom, b = 10.8919(7) angstrom, c = 7.2749(4) angstrom, alpha = 90.465(2)degrees, beta = 113.158(2)degrees, and gamma = 78.080(2)degrees at the measurement condition of 100 K, in very good agreement with previous unit-cell parameters reported from powder diffraction. The structure consists of nearly planar, covalently bonded porphyrin molecules stacked approximately parallel to (1 (1) over bar1), and held together by weak intermolecular Van der Waals forces. The molecules within a layer are slightly tilted such that molecular planes do not overlap, and an up-turned ethyl group on one molecule sits adjacent to a down-turned ethyl group on a neighboring molecule of the same layer. Layers are stacked along a vector normal to (1 (1) over bar1) such that an aromatic ring at one corner of the molecule lies directly above the opposite aromatic ring of the molecule below. Although a single molecule does not quite possess (1) over bar symmetry, matching ethyl groups at roughly opposite ends of the molecule enable orientational disorder, in which molecules can randomly adopt one of two different orientations while still stacking in the same manner. The aggregate of these two random orientations produces an overall symmetry of P (1) over bar.
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Abstract
Resolving how Earth surface redox conditions evolved through the Proterozoic Eon is fundamental to understanding how biogeochemical cycles have changed through time. The redox sensitivity of cerium relative to other rare earth elements and its uptake in carbonate minerals make the Ce anomaly (Ce/Ce*) a particularly useful proxy for capturing redox conditions in the local marine environment. Here, we report Ce/Ce* data in marine carbonate rocks through 3.5 billion years of Earth's history, focusing in particular on the mid-Proterozoic Eon (i.e., 1.8 - 0.8 Ga). To better understand the role of atmospheric oxygenation, we use Ce/Ce* data to estimate the partial pressure of atmospheric oxygen (pO(2)) through this time. Our thermodynamics-based modeling supports a major rise in atmospheric oxygen level in the aftermath of the Great Oxidation Event (similar to 2.4 Ga), followed by invariant pO(2) of about 1% of present atmospheric level through most of the Proterozoic Eon (2.4 to 0.65 Ga).
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Abstract
Ecological observations and paleontological data show that communities of organisms recur in space and time. Various observations suggest that communities largely disappear in extinction events and appear during radiations. This hypothesis, however, has not been tested on a large scale due to a lack of methods for analyzing fossil data, identifying communities, and quantifying their turnover. We demonstrate an approach for quantifying turnover of communities over the Phanerozoic Eon. Using network analysis of fossil occurrence data, we provide the first estimates of appearance and disappearance rates for marine animal paleocommunities in the 100 stages of the Phanerozoic record. Our analysis of 124,605 fossil collections (representing 25,749 living and extinct marine animal genera) shows that paleo-community disappearance and appearance rates are generally highest in mass extinctions and recovery intervals, respectively, with rates three times greater than background levels. Although taxonomic change is, in general, a fair predictor of ecologic reorganization, the variance is high, and ecologic and taxonomic changes were episodically decoupled at times in the past. Extinction rate, therefore, is an imperfect proxy for ecologic change. The paleo-community turnover rates suggest that efforts to assess the ecological consequences of the present-day biodiversity crisis should focus on the selectivity of extinctions and changes in the prevalence of biological interactions.
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Abstract
Current barriers hindering data-driven discoveries in deep-time Earth (DE) include: substantial volumes of DE data are not digitized; many DE databases do not adhere to FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) principles; we lack a systematic knowledge graph for DE; existing DE databases are geographically heterogeneous; a significant fraction of DE data is not in open-access formats; tailored tools are needed. These challenges motivate the Deep-Time Digital Earth (DDE) program initiated by the International Union of Geological Sciences and developed in cooperation with national geological surveys, professional associations, academic institutions and scientists around the world. DDE's mission is to build on previous research to develop a systematic DE knowledge graph, a FAIR data infrastructure that links existing databases and makes dark data visible, and tailored tools for DE data, which are universally accessible. DDE aims to harmonize DE data, share global geoscience knowledge and facilitate data-driven discovery in the understanding of Earth's evolution.
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Abstract
Saturn's moon Enceladus has a potentially habitable subsurface water ocean that contains canonical building blocks of life (organic and inorganic carbon, ammonia, possibly hydrogen sulfide) and chemical energy (disequilibria for methanogenesis). However, its habitability could be strongly affected by the unknown availability of phosphorus (P). Here, we perform thermodynamic and kinetic modeling that simulates P geochemistry based on recent insights into the geochemistry of the ocean-seafloor system on Enceladus. We find that aqueous P should predominantly exist as orthophosphate (e.g., HPO42-), and total dissolved inorganic P could reach 10-7 to 10-2 mol/kg H2O, generally increasing with lower pH and higher dissolved CO2, but also depending upon dissolved ammonia and silica. Levels are much higher than <10-10 mol/kg H2O from previous estimates and close to or higher than 10-6 mol/kg H2O in modern Earth seawater. The high P concentration is primarily ascribed to a high (bi)carbonate concentration, which decreases the concentrations of multivalent cations via carbonate mineral formation, allowing phosphate to accumulate. Kinetic modeling of phosphate mineral dissolution suggests that geologically rapid release of P from seafloor weathering of a chondritic rocky core could supply millimoles of total dissolved P per kilogram of H2O within 105 y, much less than the likely age of Enceladus's ocean (108 to 109 y). These results provide further evidence of habitable ocean conditions and show that any oceanic life would not be inhibited by low P availability.
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Abstract
We developed grenepipe, an all-in-one Snakemake workflow to streamline the data processing from raw high-throughput sequencing data of individuals or populations to genotype variant calls. Our pipeline offers a range of popular software tools within a single configuration file, automatically installs software dependencies, is highly optimized for scalability in cluster environments and runs with a single command.
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Abstract
Species-abundance distributions (SADs) describe the spectrum of commonness and rarity in a community. Beyond the universal observation that most species are rare and only a few common, more-precise description of SAD shape is controversial. Furthermore, the mechanisms behind SADs and how they vary along environmental gradients remain unresolved. We lack a general, non-neutral theory of SADs. Here, we develop a trait-based framework, focusing on a local community coupled to the region by dispersal. The balance of immigration and exclusion determines abundances, which vary over orders-of-magnitude. The local trait-abundance distribution (TAD) reflects a transformation of the regional TAD. The left-tail of the SAD depends on scaling exponents of the exclusion function and the regional species pool. More-complex local dynamics can lead to multimodal TADs and SADs. Connecting SADs with trait-based ecological theory provides a way to generate more-testable hypotheses on the controls over commonness and rarity in communities.
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