Early Earth: Oxygen for heavy-metal fans

@article{Lyons2009EarlyEO,
  title={Early Earth: Oxygen for heavy-metal fans},
  author={Timothy W. Lyons and Christopher T. Reinhard},
  journal={Nature},
  year={2009},
  volume={461},
  pages={179-181}
}
Chromium isotopes provide an eyebrow-raising history of oxygenation of Earth's atmosphere. Not least, it seems that oxygen might have all but disappeared half a billion years after its initial rise. 
View on Nature
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
39 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
2
Background Citations
10
Methods Citations
2

39 Citations

Changes in Arsenic Levels in the Precambrian Oceans in Relation to the Upcome of Free Oxygen
Life on Earth could have existed already 3.8 Ga ago, and yet, more complex, multicellular life did not evolve until over three billion years later, about 700 Ma ago. Many have searched for the reas…
Oxygen fluctuations stalled life on Earth
TLDR
Swings in oxygen levels may be behind a mysterious billion-year hiatus in evolution, according to research published in the journal Science.
Oxygenation of the Earth's atmosphere–ocean system: A review of physical and chemical sedimentologic responses
Exploring the Texture of Ocean-Atmosphere Redox Evolution on the Early Earth
The evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis has dramatically reshaped the chemistry of the surface Earth, and the presence of significant quantities of O2 in the atmosphere and ocean now drives the…
Rethinking the Paleoproterozoic Great Oxidation Event: A Biological Perspective
Competing geophysical/geochemical hypotheses for how Earth's surface became oxygenated - organic carbon burial, hydrogen escape to space, and changes in the redox state of volcanic gases - are…
Geobiology of the Proterozoic Eon
The Proterozoic Eon, spanning from 2.5 to 0.54 billion years ago, is Earth’s great middle age – bridging the beginnings of life with the biotic world we see today. Amidst all this change, a long…
Insight into the evolution of the iron oxidation pathways.
The evolutionary consequences of oxygenic photosynthesis: a body size perspective
TLDR
It remains difficult to confirm that the largest representatives of fossil or living taxa are limited by oxygen transport rather than other factors, and numerous tractable avenues of research could greatly improve quantitative constraints on the role of oxygen in the macroevolutionary history of organismal size.
Early Paleoproterozoic Metallogenic Explosion in North China Craton
This chapter compiles the geology and geochronology of numerous ores, including graphite, phosphorite, the Lake Superior type BIFs, marble, boron, magnesite, and lead-zinc deposits, hosted in 2.5–1.8…
When did Earth appear habitable?
  • G. Konesky
  • Physics, Geology
    Optics & Photonics - Optical Engineering + Applications
  • 2012
The rapidly accelerating rate of discovery of exoplanets has been dubbed the “golden age of discovery” of these planets, with an increasing number approaching Earth-like terrestrial planets, in…
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 17 REFERENCES
The rise of atmospheric oxygen
Clues from ancient rocks are helping to produce a coherent picture of how Earth's atmosphere changed from one that was almost devoid of oxygen to one that is one-fifth oxygen.
A Whiff of Oxygen Before the Great Oxidation Event?
TLDR
High-resolution chemostratigraphy reveals an episode of enrichment of the redox-sensitive transition metals molybdenum and rhenium in the late Archean Mount McRae Shale in Western Australia, pointing to the presence of small amounts of O2 in the environment more than 50 million years before the start of the Great Oxidation Event.
The Paleoproterozoic snowball Earth: a climate disaster triggered by the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis.
TLDR
It is argued that oxygenic cyanobacteria evolved and radiated shortly before the Makganyene snowball, and could have destroyed a methane greenhouse and triggered a snowball event on time-scales as short as 1 million years.
Fluctuations in Precambrian atmospheric oxygenation recorded by chromium isotopes
TLDR
The findings suggest that the Great Oxidation Event did not lead to a unidirectional stepwise increase in atmospheric oxygen, and strong positive fractionations in Cr isotopes in the late Neoproterozoic era provide independent support for increased surface oxygenation at that time, which may have stimulated rapid evolution of macroscopic multicellular life.
Proterozoic Ocean Chemistry and Evolution: A Bioinorganic Bridge?
TLDR
Recent data imply that for much of the Proterozoic Eon, Earth's oceans were moderately oxic at the surface and sulfidic at depth, and biologically important trace metals would have been scarce in most marine environments.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF ATMOSPHERIC OXYGEN: Homage to Robert M. Garrels
▪ Abstract This paper reviews the Precambrian history of atmospheric oxygen, beginning with a brief discussion of the possible nature and magnitude of life before the evolution of oxygenic…
Multiple sulfur isotopes and the evolution of the atmosphere
A new model for Proterozoic ocean chemistry
There was a significant oxidation of the Earth's surface around 2 billion years ago (2 Gyr). Direct evidence for this oxidation comes, mostly, from geological records of the redox-sensitive elements…
Sulphur isotope evidence for an oxic Archaean atmosphere
TLDR
The presence of mass-independently fractionated sulphur isotopes (MIF-S) in many sedimentary rocks older than ∼2.4 billion years has been considered the best evidence for a dramatic change from an anoxic to oxic atmosphere around 2.4 Gyr ago, and the level of atmospheric oxygen fluctuated greatly during the Archaean era.
Dating the rise of atmospheric oxygen
TLDR
It is found that syngenetic pyrite is present in organic-rich shales of the 2.32-Gyr-old Rooihoogte and Timeball Hill formations, South Africa, indicating that atmospheric oxygen was present at significant levels during the deposition of these units.
...
...