(Phys.org)—A small team of researchers with Princeton University has found evidence that suggests that the amount of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere has dropped by 0.7 percent over the past 800,000 years. In their paper ...
A couple of times in four billion years, evolution has slowed to a crawl. And an eon or so has passed before more complex life forms, such as simple animals, could arise.
Earth Sciences
Jul 25, 2016
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As climatologists closely monitor the impact of human activity on the world's oceans, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found yet another worrying trend impacting the health of the Pacific Ocean.
Earth Sciences
May 16, 2016
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Today, 21 percent of the air we breathe is made up of molecular oxygen. But this gas was not always in such ample, life-sustaining supply, and in fact was largely absent from the atmosphere for the first 2 billion years of ...
Earth Sciences
May 16, 2016
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A team using the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite aboard NASA's Curiosity rover has made the first detection of nitrogen on the surface of Mars from release during heating of Martian sediments.
Space Exploration
Dec 23, 2015
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Variations in the amount of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere significantly altered global climate throughout the planet's history. Efforts to reconstruct past climates must include this previously overlooked factor, a new University ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 11, 2015
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Photosynthesis leaves behind a unique calling card, a chemical signature that is spelled out with stable oxygen isotopes, according to a new study in Science. The findings suggest that similar isotopic signatures could exist ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 23, 2015
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A Carnegie-led team was able to discover five new forms of silica under extreme pressures at room temperature. Their findings are published by Nature Communications.
Condensed Matter
Mar 20, 2015
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A spark from a lightning bolt, interstellar dust, or a subsea volcano could have triggered the very first life on Earth. But what happened next? Life can exist without oxygen, but without plentiful nitrogen to build genes ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 16, 2015
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A new analysis of a Martian rock that meteorite hunters plucked from an Antarctic ice field 30 years ago this month reveals a record of the planet's climate billions of years ago, back when water likely washed across its ...
Space Exploration
Dec 22, 2014
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