A Major Breakthrough: The First Paper with CDUT as the First Author's Affiliation Published in Nature!
The research team of Professor Li Chao from the State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, the Institute of Sedimentary Geology and the International Center for Sedimentary Geochemistry and Biogeochemistry Research of Chengdu University of Technology (CDUT) published online an important research result titled "Uncovering the Ediacaran phosphorus cycle" in the international authoritative academic journal Nature on May 31st, 2023. This is the first research paper published in Nature with CDUT as the first author's affiliation since the founding of CDUT.
Paper information: Matthew Dodd, Wei Shi, Chao Li (corresponding author), Zihu Zhang, Meng Cheng, Haodong Gu, Dalton Hardisty, Sean Loyd, Malcolm Wallace, Ashleigh Hood, Kelsey Lamothe. Benjamin Mills, Simon Poulton, Timothy Lyons. (2023) Uncovering the Ediacaran phosphorus cycle. Nature. ISSN 0028-0836 (In Press).
DOI: s41586-023-06077-6
Paper link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06077-6
Experts and scholars involved in this work also include those from China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, Michigan State University, East Lansing (USA), California State University, Fullerton (USA), University of Melbourne (Australia), University of Leeds (UK), and University of California, Riverside (USA).
The research utilized the carbonate-associated phosphate (CAP) technique recently developed by Professor Li Chao's team, which can directly track phosphorus content fluctuations in paleo-oceans, and reconstructed the evolution of dissolved phosphorus content in paleo-oceans in the crucial geologic period of Ediacaran Period (635-539 Ma), discovered that a decoupling relationship between the phosphorus (as a nutrient element) content and the ocean oxygenation degree in the Ediacaran oceans is different from that in modern oceans, and proposed a hypothesis that external factors were the primitive force driving the transition from the anoxic to oxygenated state in the Ediacaran and even early Earth oceans as a whole. The research result reveals the fundamental reason for the long anoxic state of the Precambrian oceans and the fundamental mechanism leading to eventual oxygenation and greatly deepens people's understanding of the evolution of Earth's habitability and the evolution laws of complex life.
The research result also has important implications for the formation and exploration of relevant mineral resources and oil and gas resources in the early marine environment of Earth.
CDUT has established the International Center for Sedimentary Geochemistry and Biogeochemistry Research led by Professor Li Chao in reliance on the State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation. CDUT aims to build it into a world-class research and technology platform and looks forward that it will join hands with domestic and international counterparts to scale new heights in the Geosciences discipline.
The research result was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41825019, 42130208 and 41821001), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFF0800100), the International Exchange Program for Postdoctoral Researchers of China, the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, the Forrest Research Foundation, the University of Western Australia School of Earth Sciences, and the NASA Astrobiology Institute (Cooperative Agreement No. NNA15BB03A).
