29th
Scientists widely accept that around 2.4 billion years ago, the Earth’s atmosphere underwent a dramatic change when oxygen levels rose sharply.
Called the “Great Oxidation Event” (GOE), the oxygen spike marks an important milestone in Earth’s history, the transformation from an oxygen-poor atmosphere to an oxygen-rich one, paving the way for complex life to develop.
Two questions that remain unresolved in studies of the early Earth are when oxygen production via photosynthesis got started, and when it began to alter the chemistry of Earth’s ocean and atmosphere.
Now a research team led by geoscientists at the University of California at Riverside (UCR) corroborates recent evidence that oxygen production began in Earth’s oceans at least 100 million years before the GOE.
i find this stuff interesting because, ultimately, this type of research will help us develop terraforming technology.
