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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Serie: ISTE Invoiced
- Sprache: Englisch
Since their origins billions of years ago, life on Earth and the planet’s surface have undergone profound transformations. Microorganisms inhabiting a primitive planet enveloped by a dioxygen-free atmosphere have evolved into the modern biodiversity under the physico-chemical conditions we know today.
In Interactions between the Geosphere and the Biosphere, we characterize the nature and diversity of the close interactions between the biosphere and the geosphere that contributed to the formation and degradation of rocks, on the one hand, and sustained the functioning of ecological systems on the other. The book then explores how these interactions have led to a genuine coevolution between the biosphere and the geosphere over geological time. The most striking manifestations of this are the evolution of the global biogeochemical cycles of carbon and nitrogen, that of climates and the episodes of diversification and extinction of living organisms.
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Seitenzahl: 524
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
1 Weathering of Rocks by Living Organisms
1.1. Rock weathering in the critical zone
1.2. Parameterization of mineral dissolution rates
1.3. Modeling rock chemical weathering in the critical zone
1.4. Mechanisms associated with microbial dissolution
1.5. Biotic weathering by microorganisms
1.6. What quantitative impact do living organisms have on mineral dissolution?
1.7. Conclusion
1.8. References
2 Biomineralization: The Formation of Minerals by Living Organisms
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Diversity of biominerals and biomineralizing organisms
2.3. Biomineral formation mechanisms
2.4. Impact of biomineralization on how the Earth functions
2.5. Impact of biomineralization on the functioning of living organisms
2.6. Evolutionary history of biomineralization processes
2.7. Applications of biomineralogy
2.8. Conclusion
2.9. References
3 Microbialites in the Fossil and Current Record
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Microbialites: a continuous archive of Earth’s history
3.3. How microbialites are formed
3.4. Preservation of microbialites in the fossil record
3.5. Examples illustrating the diversity of microbialites in current and fossil environments
3.6. Conclusions
3.7. References
4 Molecular Approaches for the Study of Phylogenetic and Functional Diversity of Living Organisms
4.1. Classifying and understanding living organisms
4.2. Microbial diversity associated with microbialites
4.3. Functions of microbial communities associated with microbialites
4.4. Reconstruction of evolutionary history and inference of ancient traits
4.5. Conclusions and perspectives
4.6. References
5 Oxygen: A Major Geobiological Player
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Oxygen: origin and properties
5.3. The geobiological history of oxygen on Earth
5.4. Conclusion
5.5. References
6 The Importance of Living Organisms in the Carbon and Nitrogen Cycles
6.1. Biogeochemical cycles
6.2. The carbon biogeochemical cycle
6.3. The biogeochemical cycle of nitrogen
6.4. General conclusions – from a geochemical cycle to a biogeochemical cycle: how to detect the appearance of the first biological fluxes of nitrogen and carbon?
6.5. References
7 Modeling the Biosphere and Its Interactions with the Geosphere
7.1. Introduction
7.2. Response of the biosphere to current global changes
7.3. Geosphere–biosphere interaction during the colonization of continents by plants
7.4. How to model biosphere during mass extinctions?
7.5. Conclusion
7.6. References
8 Fluctuations in Biodiversity Over Geological Time: An Illustration of the Earth/Life Connection
8.1. Introduction
8.2. History of Life – how to measure it in time and space?
8.3. Extinctions and mass extinctions
8.4. (Re)diversifications: some examples of interactions between the biosphere and the geosphere
8.5. Conclusion
8.6. References
Conclusions
List of Authors
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 1
Table 1.1. Main bacteria studied for their weathering properties
Table 1.2. Main fungi studied for their weathering properties
Chapter 2
Table 2.1. Non-exhaustive list of biominerals illustrating their diversity, he...
Table 2.2. Some analytical techniques used for the study of biominerals
Chapter 5
Table 5.1. Evolution of terrestrial minerals (per Hazen and Ferry 2010)
Chapter 8
Table 8.1. (A-C) Extinction rate as a percentage of the number of genera, asse...
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Figure I.1. A representation of a biogeochemical cycle (e.g. of carbon but it ...
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1. (A) Simplified representation of dissolution processes at the flui...
Figure 1.2. (A) Logarithm of the dissolution rate (R) of different common mine...
Figure 1.3. (A) Dissolution rate of albite as a function of pH (adapted from B...
Figure 1.4. Calcite dissolution rate as a function of Gibbs free energy. For Δ
Figure 1.5. Schematic representation of the contribution of microorganisms to ...
Figure 1.6. Imprints left by the action of fungal hyphae on chlorite surfaces ...
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1. Organization at the atomic scale of atoms in a crystalline solid (...
Figure 2.2. Left: macroscopic photograph of a kidney stone of infectious origi...
Figure 2.3. From right to left, top to bottom: scanning electron microscopy im...
Figure 2.4. Some levels of the hierarchical structure of a bone. Bone tissue i...
Figure 2.5. Calcite solubility diagram. We represent the logarithm of the acti...
Figure 2.6. Graph showing the evolution of the free enthalpy during the precip...
Figure 2.7. The different categories of biological mineralization: example of ...
Figure 2.8. (A) Transmission electron microscopy image showing two different m...
Figure 2.9. Chitin and collagen, two main biological macromolecules involved i...
Figure 2.10. The working steps for the study of the biomolecular mechanisms of...
Figure 2.11. Evolution of the concentration of dissolved silica in the oceans ...
Figure 2.12. Iron-oxidizing bacteria forming extracellular polymers to localiz...
Figure 2.13. Some stages of the geological history of biomineralization.
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1. Photos of microbial mats and microbialites. The former becomes the...
Figure 3.2. Parameters for describing microbialites from the Great Salt Lake i...
Figure 3.3. Illustrated examples of macro-, meso- and micro-structures.
Figure 3.4. Techniques for studying microbialites across scales.
Figure 3.5. Evolution of the “taxonomic” diversity of microbialites over geolo...
Figure 3.6. Spatial distribution of known microbialites.
Figure 3.7. Diversity of microbialite formation environments.
Figure 3.8. Precipitation mechanisms involved in the formation of microbialite...
Figure 3.9. Intrinsic, metabolic parameters of a biofilm controlling the preci...
Figure 3.10. Extrinsic and external parameters to biofilms influencing the for...
Figure 3.11. The microbialite factory (M-factory). Left: influence of depth on...
Figure 3.12. Comparison of (i) the variation in the diversity (number of gener...
Figure 3.13. Assessment of the preservation potential of microbial mats from t...
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1. Diversity and evolution of life exemplified by phylogenetic trees....
Figure 4.2. Molecular methods for analyzing microbial diversity by amplificati...
Figure 4.3. “Omics” methods for studying metabolic functions and other traits ...
Figure 4.4. Lakes of the Mexican Transvolcanic Region hosting microbialites. P...
Figure 4.5. Canonical correspondence analysis showing the distribution of micr...
Figure 4.6. Core of prokaryotic and eukaryotic microbial species shared by mic...
Figure 4.7. Normalized abundance of diagnostic genes of different metabolic pa...
Figure 4.8. Phylogenetic tree of 16S rRNA genes showing the position of the ne...
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1. The carbon–nitrogen–oxygen cycle (or CNO cycle) of nuclear fusion ...
Figure 5.2. Redox scale illustrating the main reactions between two redox coup...
Figure 5.3. Electronic structure of water (image credit: khanacademy.org).
Figure 5.4. Temperature, density, ozone and atmospheric gas concentration prof...
Figure 5.5. Geological eons, eras and periods (shown here only for the Protero...
Figure 5.6. World geological map showing the Precambrian cratons (in pink and ...
Figure 5.7. Noble gas abundances measured for chondrites, Earth, Mars and Venu...
Figure 5.8. Co-evolution of living organisms and environments (Lepot 2020). (A...
Figure 5.9. The history of O
2
in the Earth’s atmosphere. Atmospheric levels of...
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1. Schematic of isotopic relationships between dissolved CO
2
, DIC, pr...
Figure 6.2. Compilation of carbon isotopic data from sedimentary records over ...
Figure 6.3. Simplified box model representation of the biogeochemical carbon c...
Figure 6.4. Simplified model of the biogeochemical cycle of nitrogen in modern...
Figure 6.5. Simplified representation of the redox evolution of the biogeochem...
Figure 6.6. Compilation of nitrogen isotopic data from sedimentary archives ov...
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1. Example of a box model of the carbon cycle. The processes generati...
Figure 7.2. Simplified example of an Earth System model.
Figure 7.3. Average chlorophyll concentration in the surface ocean simulated b...
Figure 7.4. a) pCO
2
evolution curves (in ppmv) during the Phanerozoic accordin...
Figure 7.5. The Peng-Broecker model only considers the ocean. It distinguishes...
Figure 7.6. Temporal dynamics of carbon isotopic compositions of surface ocean...
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1. Representation of the evolution of diversity over geological time,...
Figure 8.2. Diversity curves over the Phanerozoic proposed by: (A) Phillips (1...
Figure 8.3. Comparison of accumulation and rarefaction curves obtained on the ...
Figure 8.4. Scenario and proposed links between environmental modifications to...
Figure 8.5. Evolution of ammonoid diversity around the Permian/Triassic bounda...
Figure 8.6. Scenario and proposed links between environmental and biotic chang...
Figure 8.7. Schematic diagrams representing a sediment column influenced by hi...
Figure 8.8. Conceptual model of the availability of ions primarily used by the...
Figure 8.9. Post-Triassic diversity of two calcifying planktonic organisms (mo...
Guide
Cover Page
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
Begin Reading
Conclusions
List of Authors
Index
WILEY END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
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SCIENCESGeoscience, Field Director – Yves Lagabrielle
The Surface of the Lithosphere and the Biosphere,Subject Head – François Baudin
Interactions between the Geosphere and the Biosphere
Coordinated by
Karim Benzerara
Christophe Thomazo
First published 2025 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
ISTE Ltd27-37 St George’s RoadLondon SW19 4EUUK
www.iste.co.uk
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030USA
www.wiley.com
© ISTE Ltd 2025The rights of Karim Benzerara and Christophe Thomazo to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s), contributor(s) or editor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of ISTE Group.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2024949159
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA CIP record for this book is available from the British LibraryISBN 978-1-78945-203-7
ERC code:PE10 Earth System Science PE10_5 Geology, tectonics, volcanology PE10_6 Palaeoclimatology, palaeoecology PE10_9 Biogeochemistry, biogeochemical cycles, environmental chemistry PE10_12 Sedimentology, soil science, palaeontology, earth evolutionLS8 Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution LS8_1 Ecosystem and community ecology, macroecology LS8_2 Biodiversity
Introduction
Christophe THOMAZO1 and Karim BENZERARA2
1 Laboratoire Biogéosciences, University of Burgundy, Dijon, France
2 IMPMC, UMR 7590, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France
The division of the Earth into compartments, each with their own dynamics but still interacting with one another, is a key principle in biogeochemistry, which aims to understand how the Earth functions and how it has evolved over geological time, as well as to predict how it will evolve in the future. These compartments are called “spheres” and can be delimited differently and at different scales depending on the questions asked (Figure I.1). We regularly see the terms atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere or biosphere as constituents of the Earth system1. At smaller scales, we can also consider the troposphere and the stratosphere when we are more specifically interested in the functioning of the atmosphere, or the lithosphere and the asthenosphere for the study of plate tectonics. At other scales, we can define the pedosphere when studying soils. Reference to the anthroposphere designates the compartment influenced by anthropogenic activities. In this book, we understand the geosphere as the set of solid, gaseous and liquid compartments composing the Earth. Thus, the geosphere brings together the oceanic and continental lithospheres, the even more internal parts, namely the mantle and the core as well as the most superficial parts constituting the hydrosphere and the atmosphere. The term biosphere, a concept introduced for the first time in the natural sciences in 1875 by Eduard Süß, professor of paleontology at the University of Vienna, designates all living beings.
Figure I.1.A representation of a biogeochemical cycle (e.g. of carbon but it could be for many other chemical elements) involving different reservoirs and in particular the geosphere and the biosphere, all making up the Earth system. The geosphere is itself made up of different reservoirs such as the atmosphere, the hydrosphere or the lithosphere. The biosphere is a reservoir in itself, but living organisms also catalyze transfers between reservoirs.
The existence of interactions between these two compartments has been suspected since the 16th century, when debates on the origin of oil, used for more than 3,000 years, began. It was Andreas Libavius, a German chemist and doctor, who, in 1597, was one of the first to suggest an organic origin of petroleum corresponding to ancient tree resin. In 1757, Mikhail Lomonosov clarified this theory and proposed that liquid petroleum and bitumen came from the transformation of plant organism remains at depth, under the effect of increasing temperature and pressure. Joint observations using geological (oil found in the center of sedimentary basins) and geochemical approaches (the isotopic composition of oil is the same as that of the surface biosphere, and all oils contain very specific molecules called porphyrins, which derive from chlorophyll) confirmed four centuries later the hypotheses of Libavius and Lomnosov on its biological origin. However, it was Vladimir Verdnasky, an illustrious Russian scientist in his time (1863–1945), who theorized these interactions between the geosphere and biosphere by emphasizing the role of life (and human beings) as a geological force (Verdnasky 1986). These ideas formed the foundations of the discipline, biogeochemistry, which has since continued to develop.
When the two editors of this book were studying at French universities, courses combined life sciences and Earth sciences, with the particular objective of training secondary school teachers. This coupling seemed to come directly from the traditional alliance of the natural sciences, which had generated much knowledge in both biology and geology in the era of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, Georges Cuvier or Charles Darwin. However, specialization in scientific research further separated biology and geology and a few rare lessons in ecology and paleontology made it possible to note the obvious links between these two scientific fields.
The influence of the geosphere on living organisms generally seems the most obvious. In ecology, the concept of fundamental ecological niche is associated with the surrounding abiotic conditions, themselves partly imposed by the geosphere. The biotope is a geographical area defined by relatively homogeneous physical and chemical properties. Associated biotope and biocenosis form an ecosystem. There is a roughly latitudinal distribution of large vegetation covers on the Earth’s surface, from tundra and taiga at high latitudes to tropical forests, including temperate forests and savannahs. This distribution is controlled by the climate, itself controlling the properties of the soil, which imposes local living conditions. Few places seem uninhabitable on Earth. Indeed, since the 1960s, we have known about ecosystems developing in hydrothermal environments at the bottom of the ocean in the absence of light. The temperature limit of life appears to be approximately 120°C, which can be reached in environments under a relatively high pressure such as at the bottom of the oceans. We also find traces of life in the coldest deserts in Antarctica or the hottest and driest deserts such as the Atacama. Only a few hypersaline, hyperacidic and (hyper)hot lakes in Ethiopia do not seem to support life.
On the other hand, the influence of the biosphere on the geosphere may seem less obvious at first glance. Indeed, the difference in scale (in size and over time) between organisms such as bacteria and a mountain makes it difficult to imagine how the former could influence the latter. And yet, in the 1960s, James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis jointly developed a revolutionary idea, outlined in the Gaia hypothesis (Lovelock and Margulis 1974). This hypothesis suggests that Earth’s living organisms collectively regulate the planet’s conditions, including the chemical composition of the atmosphere, creating a stable and hospitable environment for life. They thus envisaged the Earth as a self-regulating system, in which life itself influences the geosphere, and in particular, climate.
Although such a global interaction between the biosphere and geosphere remains debated, we will see in the first chapter that the influence of the biosphere on the geosphere can be studied on a more local scale, notably through mineral dissolution processes. This process ensures the cycling of chemical elements, including those essential to life, releasing them into the soil, whose fertility is thus impacted. Despite all of our knowledge, predicting the dissolution rate of minerals is still difficult and although the influence of life on these rates has been determined in certain cases, quantifying it on a global scale is a current issue. A large quantity of these chemical elements released by minerals will, after having transited or not through the biosphere, reach the hydrosphere (rivers, lakes, streams and oceans). There, they can be re-trapped in de novo minerals and participate in redistributing matter, sometimes by creating resources of interest to humans, such as iron or phosphorus deposits, for example.
The second chapter addresses another action of the biosphere on the geosphere: the formation of minerals by living beings or biomineralization. We will see that from a very early point in the Earth’s history, organisms have impacted the formation of minerals. On the one hand, this has had repercussions on the functioning of living organisms and the history of life. But in return, biomineralization also seems to have played a role in the evolution of the chemical functioning of the Earth’s surface by notably lowering the concentration of certain chemical species in the oceans.
Stromatolites are emblematic examples of rocks formed by life. These “living stones” have been observed in geological records as old as 3.5 billion years. The third chapter will explain the mechanisms involved in their formation, and the information obtained from the study of ancient stromatolites will provide knowledge about the history of life. Stromatolites are mainly formed by diverse microbial ecosystems that transform their immediate chemical environment. The identification of these microbes and their geochemical functions through their metabolisms requires the use of molecular biology methods, whose methodological progress over the past decades has revolutionized our knowledge of the diversity of living organisms. The fourth chapter will explain this approach as well as how we can obtain valuable information about the history of life from studying the diversity of living beings today.
The most obvious manifestation of the role of life in the transformation of the Earth throughout its history is the protracted oxygenation of the atmosphere, which remarkably expanded during the Great Oxidation Event, nearly 2.3 billion years ago and has allowed over the last 600 million years for the development of sulfate-rich oceans as well as the development of eukaryotes, including plants and animals. This chemical revolution followed a biological innovation: the appearance of oxygenic photosynthesis. The fifth chapter will detail how this event became engrained in the geological record, how it was dated and will specify the links between this biological innovation and the chemical evolution of the geosphere. Beyond the provision of a new molecule abundant in the atmosphere (the dioxygen molecule), this event profoundly disrupted the chemical functioning of the Earth’s surface and in particular the cycle of other chemical elements such as carbon and nitrogen, of biological and climatic importance.
Thus, the sixth chapter will explain the functioning of the current carbon and nitrogen cycles and how we can try to reconstruct their functioning in the past. We will learn that living beings once again play a key role in these global cycles. The study of biogeochemical cycles requires the manipulation of a variety of tools including measuring abundance ratios between different isotopes of chemical elements. This leads to the definition of reservoirs represented schematically by “boxes”, which interact with each other via flows of molecules whose speciation can change during transfer. The variation over time of a physico-chemical (or biological) parameter, for example, temperature, can intensify a flow. In turn, this intensification can induce modifications, which in return will increase even more or, on the contrary, reduce this same flow. We thus see the establishment of positive or negative feedback loops, making the prediction of the evolution of the Earth system after a disturbance or change unintuitive. Therefore, to make these predictions, it is necessary to conduct a modeling approach to evaluate the relative importance of different processes in the evolution of a geochemical compartment.
The purpose of the seventh chapter will be to explain the different types of modeling currently used to understand the disruptions in geosphere/biosphere interactions occurring within the Earth system, for example, the climatic consequences of the colonization of continents by plants more than 450 million years ago and the geological causes of the mass extinctions, which affected living organisms. Different interaction loops stabilized the Earth system and maintained life over long periods of geological time, but this couple also evolved to become what it is today. Current anthropogenic disturbances could in turn destabilize this system. The extent of these changes and the future feedback, beyond the direct threats to human civilizations, however, remain uncertain.
Finally, the eighth chapter will dive further into the changes in biodiversity over geological time, including episodes of extinction and diversification of living organisms which testify to multiple interactions between the biosphere and the geosphere.
Ultimately, this book will be an opportunity to become more aware of the diversity of concepts, knowledge and know-how that must be mobilized to study the interactions between the geosphere and the biosphere. This is the very essence of a so-called interdisciplinary field, which here involves the use of notions from physics, chemistry, biology and of course, geology. In addition, we will note that life does not exist separate from planet Earth. The two are strongly intertwined, and the evolution of the first has influenced the history of the second and vice versa. The different chapters are independent and have been written by different authors, thus offering an overview of the multidisciplinary nature of this field of study.
The interactions between the geosphere and the biosphere certainly took place very early on in the history of the Earth. Understanding them is a necessity to better assess what a habitable and inhabited planet is. This is key for the search for extraterrestrial life.
References
Lovelock, J.E. and Margulis, L. (1974). Atmospheric homeostasis by and for the biosphere: The Gaia hypothesis.
Tellus
, 26(1–2), 2–10.
Vernadsky, V.I. (1986).
The Biosphere
. Copernicus, New York.
Note
1
Term designating all geospheres and biospheres formalized during a congress organized by NASA in the 1980s as a scientific disciplinary field in its own right aimed at understanding and mechanistically quantifying the interactions between spheres and their impacts.
