Researchers from the University of Leeds have shown that a key role in increasing oxygen levels in the atmosphere
For a long time, researchers believed that increasingThe proportion of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere is associated with photosynthesis. This theory suggests that the first seaweeds and plants produced oxygen as a byproduct and released it into the atmosphere.
In a study published in the journal NatureGeoscience scientists show the flaw of this hypothesis. When algae and other marine plants die, they are decomposed by microorganisms. This process absorbs oxygen from the atmosphere. As a result, the proportion of atmospheric oxygen did not change: the gas produced as a result of photosynthesis was absorbed during the decomposition of dead plants and algae.
Changing this balance was made possible thanks tomineralization of organic carbon. This is a process in which mineral particles (especially iron molecules) formed during the weathering of rocks bind to dead algae and plants and prevent them from breaking down and decomposing.
In the study, scientists showed that knowngeological events coincide in time with the increase in oxygen in the atmosphere. For example, the oxygen catastrophe (revolution), which occurred about 2.4 billion years ago and is associated with a sharp increase in the proportion of this gas in the atmosphere, coincides with the formation of the first continents. Researchers believe that it was the formation of land, the beginning of the erosion of rocks and the flow of mineral particles into the ocean that triggered atmospheric changes.
Our research changes ideas about howThe Earth's atmosphere filled with oxygen, which ultimately allowed complex life forms to develop. This gives us important insight into the conditions that must exist on other planets for intelligent life to develop.
Caroline Peacock, professor of biogeochemistry at the University of Leeds and co-author of the study
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