Oxygen levels in the Earth's atmosphere are likely to have "fluctuated wildly" 1 billion years ago, creating conditions that could have accelerated the development of early animal life, according to new research.
Evolution
Oct 14, 2022
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179
Some time in Earth's early history, the planet took a turn toward habitability when a group of enterprising microbes known as cyanobacteria evolved oxygenic photosynthesis—the ability to turn light and water into energy, ...
Evolution
Sep 28, 2021
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419
New research led by the University of St Andrews helps answer one of the most asked questions in geoscience, when did Earth start to become habitable to complex life?
Earth Sciences
Jun 2, 2020
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176
A new study suggests that rapid cooling within the Earth's mantle through plate tectonics played a major role in the development of the first life forms, which in turn led to the oxygenation of the Earth's atmosphere. The ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 7, 2018
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Scientists have long wondered how Earth's atmosphere filled with oxygen. UBC geologist Matthijs Smit and research partner Klaus Mezger may have found the answer in continental rocks that are billions of years old.
Earth Sciences
Sep 18, 2017
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285
Scientists know that atmospheric oxygen irreversibly accumulated on Earth around 2.3 billion years ago, at a time known as the Great Oxidation Event, or GOE. Prior to that time all life was microbial, and most, if not all, ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 6, 2017
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15
Rice University petrologists who recreated hot, high-pressure conditions from 60 miles below Earth's surface have found a new clue about a crucial event in the planet's deep past.
Earth Sciences
Apr 25, 2017
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A study of tiny mineral 'inclusions' within diamonds from Botswana has shown that diamond crystals can take billions of years to grow. One diamond was found to contain silicate material that formed 2.3 billion years ago in ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 23, 2017
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167
Research led by the University of St Andrews and published yesterday (Monday 6 February) in Nature – provides new insight into how life evolved alongside changes in the chemistry of Earth's surface. These researchers examined ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 8, 2017
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390
A University of Wyoming researcher contributed to a paper that determined a "Snowball Earth" event actually took place 100 million years earlier than previously projected, and a rise in the planet's oxidation resulted from ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 6, 2017
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478
