early Earth

That could impact our understanding of early Earth. Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe but finding it on Earth is tricky. So researchers resorted to a computer simulation and found a promising possible compound: Helium-bearing compounds have, until very recently, been considered unlikely to exist under the physical conditions on or inside the Earth, Chen says, but in his opinion, his team’s new predictions change that view. Chen suggests that primordial helium reacted with FeO2 back when the Earth was new, forming a solid material. The compound is sufficiently heavy that it would only rise to the surface through so-called mantle plumes, which are columns of hot, solid rock that move up to the crust. When Read More ›

According to the latest research, we learn from ScienceDaily: Earth’s oxygen levels rose and fell more than once hundreds of millions of years before the planetwide success of the Great Oxidation Event about 2.4 billion years ago, new research from the University of Washington shows. The evidence comes from a new study that indicates a second and much earlier “whiff” of oxygen in Earth’s distant past — in the atmosphere and on the surface of a large stretch of ocean — showing that the oxygenation of the Earth was a complex process of repeated trying and failing over a vast stretch of time. … Now, a team led by Koehler has confirmed a second such appearance of oxygen in Earth’s Read More ›