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A persistently low level of atmospheric oxygen in Earth’s middle age
Open accessAbstract
Resolving how Earth surface redox conditions evolved through the Proterozoic Eon is fundamental to understanding how biogeochemical cycles have changed through time. The redox sensitivity of cerium relative to other rare earth elements and its uptake in carbonate minerals make the Ce anomaly (Ce/Ce*) a particularly useful proxy for capturing redox conditions in the local marine environment. Here, we report Ce/Ce* data in marine carbonate rocks through 3.5 billion years of Earth’s history, focusing in particular on the mid-Proterozoic Eon (i.e., 1.8 – 0.8 Ga). To better understand the role of atmospheric oxygenation, we use Ce/Ce* data to estimate the partial pressure of atmospheric oxygen (pO 2 ) through this time. Our thermodynamics-based modeling supports a major rise in atmospheric oxygen level in the aftermath of the Great Oxidation Event (~ 2.4 Ga), followed by invariant pO 2 of about 1% of present atmospheric level through most of the Proterozoic Eon (2.4 to 0.65 Ga).
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“In addition, there are geochemical signals for anoxic conditions in very-shallow-water environments, including in the wave-mixed portions of the oceans (Bellefroid et al. 2019, Doyle et al. 2018, Liu et al. 2021, Tang et al. 2016).”
From The History of Ocean Oxygenation (2022) · cites this paper as Liu et al. 2021
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“Cerium (Ce) records from the mid-Proterozoic point similarly to low oxygen conditions even in shallow waters where carbonates were forming (Tang et al., 2016; Liu et al., 2021).”
From Oxygenation, Life, and the Planetary System during Earth's Middle History: An Overview (2021) · cites this paper as Liu et al., 2021
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“Although the precise range of atmospheric pO 2 values during the mid-Proterozoic is not yet clear (Gregory et al. 2021, Liu et al. 2021, Planavsky et al. 2018a), it is widely accepted that atmospheric O 2 was well below that of the modern Earth.”
From The History of Ocean Oxygenation (2022) · cites this paper as Liu et al. 2021
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“Although the precise range of atmospheric pO 2 values during the mid-Proterozoic is not yet clear (Gregory et al. 2021, Liu et al. 2021, Planavsky et al. 2018a)”
From The History of Ocean Oxygenation (2022) · cites this paper as Liu et al. 2021
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Oxygenation, Life, and the Planetary System during Earth's Middle History: An Overview
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Metadata
- Authors
- Liu, X.-M., Kah, L. C., Knoll, A. H., Cui, H., Wang, C., Bekker, A., & Hazen, R. M.
- Affiliations
- University of Tennessee at Knoxville (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- Institut de physique du globe de Paris (FR)
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- University of California, Riverside (US)
- Carnegie Institution for Science (US)
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2021-01-13
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 351-351
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7806885
- OpenAlex
- W3120679837
- Cited by
- 116
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 12
- FWCI
- 15.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (EAR-1848153)
- United States Department of Defense | United States Army | U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command | Army Research Office (W911NF-17-2-0028)
- Canadian Network for Research and Innovation in Machining Technology, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- W. M. Keck Foundation
- John Templeton Foundation
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geochemistry and Petrology › Geochemistry and Elemental Analysis
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geochemistry and Petrology › Geological and Geochemical Analysis
- Keywords
- atmospheric oxygen, cerium anomaly, rare earth elements, Great Oxidation Event, oxygen partial pressure, paleo-oxygenation, biogeochemical cycles, thermodynamic modeling
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