Stepwise Earth oxygenation is an inherent property of global biogeochemical cycling
Stepping to an internal beat
What caused the stepwise nature of the rise of molecular oxygen in Earth's atmosphere since it appeared in large quantities more than 2 billion years ago? Alcott et al. argue that a set of internal feedbacks involving the global phosphorus, carbon, and oxygen cycles, not individual external forces, could be responsible. Their model, which depends only on a gradual shift from reducing to oxidizing surface conditions over time, produces the same three-step pattern observed in the geological record.
Science, this issue p. 1333
Abstract
Oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans occurred across three major steps during the Paleoproterozoic, Neoproterozoic, and Paleozoic eras, with each increase having profound consequences for the biosphere. Biological or tectonic revolutions have been proposed to explain each of these stepwise increases in oxygen, but the principal driver of each event remains unclear. Here we show, using a theoretical model, that the observed oxygenation steps are a simple consequence of internal feedbacks in the long-term biogeochemical cycles of carbon, oxygen, and phosphorus, and that there is no requirement for a specific stepwise external forcing to explain the course of Earth surface oxygenation. We conclude that Earth’s oxygenation events are entirely consistent with gradual oxygenation of the planetary surface after the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis.
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Supplementary Material
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Figs. S1 to S4
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Copyright © 2019 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
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Received: 11 April 2019
Accepted: 17 October 2019
10 December 2019
Acknowledgments
We thank C. Slomp and K. Wallmann for sending computer code; we also thank the reviewers of this work for constructive and useful comments. Funding: L.J.A. is funded by a Leeds Anniversary Research Scholarship. B.J.W.M. acknowledges support from a University of Leeds Academic Fellowship. S.W.P. acknowledges support from a Leverhulme Research Fellowship and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. B.J.W.M. and S.W.P. are funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NE/R010129/1 and NE/S009663/1). Author contributions: L.J.A. and B.J.W.M. designed the research and developed the model. L.J.A. performed model runs. All authors wrote the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All data are available in the main text or the supplementary materials. Model code and output data are available from the corresponding author on request.
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Natural Environment Research Council: (NE/R010129/1)
Natural Environment Research Council: NE/S009663/1
Leeds Anniversary Research Scholarship:
