Great Oxidation Event (GOE)

The Great Oxidation Event (GOE), sometimes also called the Great Oxygenation Event, Oxygen Catastrophe, Oxygen Crisis, Oxygen Holocaust, or Oxygen Revolution, was a time period when the Earth's atmosphere and the shallow ocean experienced a rise in oxygen, approximately 2.4 billion years ago (2.4 Ga) to 2.1–2.0 Ga during the Paleoproterozoic era.
Geological, isotopic, and chemical evidence suggests that biologically produced molecular oxygen (dioxygen, O2) started to accumulate in Earth's atmosphere and changed Earth's atmosphere from a weakly reducing atmosphere to an oxidizing atmosphere, causing many existing species on Earth to die out.
The cyanobacteria producing the oxygen caused the event which enabled the subsequent development of multicellular forms.

Source: TH

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GS-I : Human Geography Universe and Solar System

14 June, 2020
5 Min Read

Great Oxidation Event (GOE)

The atmosphere of early Earth contained little molecular oxygen. A significant increase in oxygen occurred ca. 2.4–2.0 billion years ago in what is called the Great Oxidation Event (GOE).
A large positive excursion in carbon isotopic composition in sedimentary carbonates is known to have occurred 2.2–2.0 billion years ago (the Lomagundi-Jatuli event), which provides evidence for an enhanced rate of organic carbon burial, i.e., enhanced net production of oxygen.
The Proterozoic snowball Earth event (global glaciation) occurred 2.3–2.2 billion years ago, roughly coinciding with the GOE.
Thus, a causal relationship between the GOE and the snowball Earth event has been suggested.
The snowball Earth event could have been triggered by an increase in oxygen in the atmosphere because it would have resulted in a significant reduction of atmospheric methane level, thereby reducing the greenhouse effect of the atmosphere and causing global glaciation.
On the other hand, the termination of the snowball Earth event may have triggered the production of a large amount of oxygen because the extremely hot climate (~60 °C) immediately after the termination of the snowball Earth event must have significantly increased the supply of phosphate to the oceans, resulting in large-scale blooms of cyanobacteria, which could have produced large amounts of oxygen.
The postglacial transition of atmospheric oxygen levels may have promoted an ecological shift and biological innovations for oxygen-dependent life.

Source: TH

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