Oxygen should be on the stock market; the numbers go up and down all the time.
From ScienceDaily:
Geologists are using new direct methods to measure the Earth’s oxygenation. They identified, for the first time, exactly how much oxygen was in Earth’s atmosphere 813 million years ago — 10.9 percent. This finding, they say, demonstrates that oxygenation on Earth occurred 300 million years earlier than previously concluded from indirect measurements.
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“Diversity of life emerges right around this time period,” Benison said. “We used to think that to have diversity of life we needed specific things, including a certain amount of oxygen. (The findings) show that not as much oxygen is required for organisms to develop.” More. Paper. (paywall) – Nigel J.F. Blamey, Uwe Brand, John Parnell, Natalie Spear, Christophe Lécuyer, Kathleen Benison, Fanwei Meng, Pei Ni. Paradigm shift in determining Neoproterozoic atmospheric oxygen. Geology, 2016; 44 (8): 651 DOI: 10.1130/G37937.1
But how do we know that diversity of life emerged right around that time period? That figure might be wrong too. It’s a clue in search of other clues. Good hunting.
See also: Oxygen deficit delayed evolution
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