The reliability of ∼2.9 Ga old Witwatersrand banded iron formations (South Africa) as archives for Mesoarchean seawater: Evidence from REE and Nd isotope systematics

Pure marine chemical sediments, such as (Banded) Iron Formations, (B)IFs, are archives of geochemical proxies for the composition of Precambrian seawater and may provide information about the ancient hydrosphere-atmosphere system. We here present rare earths and yttrium (REY) and high precision Sm–Nd isotope data of ∼2.90 Ga old Superior-type BIFs from the Witwatersrand Supergroup, South Africa, and compare those with data for...