Environmental microbiology explains the largest positive carbon isotope excursion in Earth history, the Lomagundi-Jatuli Event
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Updated: Jun 18, 2025

Soil Lysimeter Excavation for Coupled Hydrological, Geochemical, and Microbiological Investigations
Published on: September 11, 2016
1School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Scotland.
Abstract:
The geological record of stable carbon isotopes preserved in marine carbonate rocks spans nearly 4 billion years. Numerous perturbations mark this record, but one stands out for its magnitude, the Lomagundi-Jatuli Event, which spanned the transition of the Earth's surface from an anoxic to an oxic state. An Applied and Environmental Microbiology article by D. Y. Sumner (90:e00093-24, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1128/aem.00093-24) provides, for the first time, a biological explanation for its initiation, cessation, environmental specific restriction, and geological singularity.
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