Sulfur Isotopes in Swaziland System Barites and the Evolution of the Earth's Atmosphere

Abstract

Sedimentary barites from the Swaziland System of South Africa (more than 3000 million years old) have sulfur-34 ratios that are enriched by only 2.5 per mil with respect to contemporary sulfides. To explain this small fractionation, it is proposed that oxygen pressure in the earth's atmosphere was very low and that local oxidation occurred in a photosynthetic layer of the ocean.