NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

  1. Content with the tag: “proterozoic

  2. Phosphorus and the Global Breath of Fresh Air


    NAI and Exobiology Program scientists have studied the ratio of phosphorus to iron in ancient marine deposits, and have found that phosphorus levels are linked to the rapid diversification of animal life that began at the end of the Proterozoic era, about 700 million years ago. Their paper appears in a recent issue of Nature.

    An increase in atmospheric oxygen at the time provided “raw material” for the evolution of respiration (breathing) and contributed to a protective ozone layer. The end of global “snowball Earth” glaciations likely paved the way for animal life to flourish, too, but...

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  3. Microbial Sulfur Disproportionation and Accelerated Oxygenation at Earth's Surface


    Researchers from NAI’s Carnegie Institution of Washington Lead Team published a study in this week’s Science using high-precision measurements of a rare sulfur isotope, 33S, to establish that microbial sulfur disproportionation was in place almost half a billion years earlier than previously thought. This could imply that Earth’s surface may have become progressively more oxygenated during the middle Proterozoic.

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