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The rise of oxygen and the hydrogen hourglass

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zahnle2014chemicalgeology26.pdf (736.2Kb)
Date
2013
Author
Zahnle, Kevin J.
Catling, David C.
Claire, Mark W.
Keywords
Oxygen
Hydrogen escape
Atmospheric evolution
Oxygenation
Evolution
QE Geology
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Abstract
Oxygenic photosynthesis appears to be necessary for an oxygen-rich atmosphere like Earth’s. But available geological and geochemical evidence suggest that at least 200 Myr, and possibly more than 700 Myr, elapsed between the advent of oxygenic photosynthesis and the establishment of an oxygen atmosphere. The interregnum implies that at least one other necessary condition for O2 needed to be met. Here we argue that the second condition was the oxidation of the surface and crust to the point where O2 became more stable than competing reduced gases such as CH4. The cause of Earth’s surface oxidation would be the same cause as it is for other planets with oxidized surfaces: hydrogen escape to space. The duration of the interregnum would have been determined by the rate of hydrogen escape and by the size of the reduced reservoir that needed to be oxidized before O2 became favored. We suggest that continental growth has been influenced by hydrogen escape, and we speculate that, if there must be an external bias to biological evolution, hydrogen escape can be that bias.
Citation
Zahnle , K J , Catling , D C & Claire , M W 2013 , ' The rise of oxygen and the hydrogen hourglass ' , Chemical Geology , no. 0 , pp. 26-34 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2013.08.004
Publication
Chemical Geology
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2013.08.004
ISSN
0009-2541
Type
Journal article
Rights
© The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Description
Funding: the NASA Exobiology Program and the NASA National Astrobiology Institute. DCC acknowledges support from NASA Exobiology grant number NNX10AQ90G.
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URL
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0009254113003513
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/4771

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