-
Subaerial Volcanoes Shift Oxygen Levels on Early Earth
August 30, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe
Biomarkers in rocks prior to the rise in Earth’s atmospheric oxygen 2.5 billion years ago show cyanobacteria released oxygen at the same levels as today. What was happening to that oxygen? A new paper in this week’s Nature from NAI’s Penn State Team proposes that the rise of atmospheric oxygen occurred because the predominant sink for oxygen—enhanced submarine volcanism—was abruptly and permanently diminished during the Archaean–Proterozoic transition by a shift from predominantly submarine volcanism to a mix of subaerial and submarine volcanism.
Source: [Link]
- NASA Chooses MAVEN as the Next Mars Scout Mission
- NASA's Carl Sagan Fellows to Study Extraterrestrial Worlds
- Looking for Life on Mars – in a Canadian Lake
- Mars Research in Polar Bear Country
- Iron Isotope Record Reflects Microbial Metabolism Through Time
- Silicate Mineralogy on Mars Indicates Wet Past
- Jack Hills Zircons: New Information About Earth's Earliest Crust
- ASTID Funds 15 New Projects
- Liquid Water in the Martian North? Maybe.
- Astrobiology Rap
