Abstract:
The application of the onset of supercontinentality, the “Great Oxidation Event” (GOE) and the first global
scale glaciation in the Neoarchaean-Palaeoproterozoic as panacea-like events providing a framework or
even chronological piercing points in Earth’s history at this time, is questioned. There is no solid evidence
that the Kaapvaal craton was part of a larger amalgamation at this time, and its glacigenic record is
dominated by deposits supporting the operation of an active hydrological cycle in parallel with glaciation,
thereby arguing against the “Snowball Earth Hypothesis”. While the Palaeoproterozoic geological
record of Kaapvaal does broadly support the GOE, this postulate itself is being questioned on the basis of
isotopic data used as oxygen-proxies, and sedimentological data from extant river systems on the craton
argue for a prolongation of the greenhouse palaeo-atmosphere (possibly in parallel with a relative
elevation of oxygen levels) which presumably preceded the GOE. The possibility that these widespread
events may have been diachronous at the global scale is debated.
