The evolution of life as depicted in a mural at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. The rise of oxygen from a trace element to a primary atmospheric component was an important evolutionary development. (Courtesy of NASA Ames/David J. Des Marais/Thomas W. Scattergood/Linda L. Jahnke)
Study points to one cause for several mysteries linked to breathable oxygen. Earth's breathable atmosphere is key for life, and a new study suggests that the first burst of oxygen was added by a spate of volcanic eruptions brought about by tectonics. The study by geoscientists at Rice University offers a new theory to help explain the appearance of significant concentrations of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere about 2.5 billion years ago, something scientists call the Great Oxidation Event (GOE). The research appears this week. "What makes this unique is that it's not just trying to explain the rise of oxygen,” said study lead author James Eguchi , a NASA postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Riverside who conducted the work for his Ph.D. dissertation at Rice. "It's also trying to explain some closely associated surface geochemistry, a change in the composition of carbon isotopes, that is observed in the carbonate rock record a relatively short time after the oxidation event.
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