Abstract Molecular oxygen has played a crucial role in shaping our planetary environment. The emergence of oxygen in the atmosphere and the oceans and its changing concentration through time is strongly linked to major changes on Earth such as tectonic reorganization,climatic perturbations and biological evolution. Two facts are known with certainty that are resulted from the long－term study on the rise of atmosphere oxygen,that are:(1)Earth’s earliest atmosphere was essentially devoid of oxygen,and(2)today’s atmosphere is composed of 21% oxygen. It should be emphasized that most geological indicators of atmospheric oxygen levels in geological time imply only presence or absence,which led to many difficulties on study of the rise of atmosphere oxygen. Even though,a battery of geological indicators suggest that a shift from an anoxic to an oxic atmosphere some time between 2.5 and 2.0 billion years ago,which is known and defined as the Great Oxidation Event(GOE). Further research in resent years demonstrates that several lines of evidence point to a second‘Great Oxidation Event’(GOE~Ⅱ)during the Precambrian-Cambrian transition between about 850 and 540,Ma,which is herewith referred to as the Neoproterozoic Oxygenation Event(NOE). In practice,the considerable variation in atmospheric oxygen levels through Phanerozoic time peaked near 150% PAL in the late Carboniferous,which is herewith defined as the Phanerozoic Oxygenation Event(POE). Because photosynthetic oxygen production by cyanobacteria led to oxygenation of the atmosphere and oceans,in turn provided an elementary condition for the aerobic respiration and the evolution of large,complex and ultimately intelligent organisms,the rise of atmosphere oxygen can be defined as the action product of geobiological process that is genetically related to the geodynamics,which become an important clue for the further understanding of the evolution of palaeogeographical background of the Earth. Furthermore,there are many intrinsically differences with respect to their consequences and merits among these Oxygenation Events,i.e. the GOE,the NOE and the POE,but the concept of themselves and the study on their forming mechanism demonstrate many new ideas and cognitions. Tracing these new ideas and cognitions will be helpful for the further understanding of this particular geobiological process represented by the rise of atmosphere oxygen,which can provide many useful thinking approaches and researching clues for the future research.
Fund:Financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No. 41472090,40472065,49802012)
Cite this article:
Mei Mingxiang. Great Oxidation Event in history of the Earth:An important clue for the further understanding of evolution of palaeogeographical background[J]. JOPC, 2016, 18(3): 315-334.
Mei Mingxiang. Great Oxidation Event in history of the Earth:An important clue for the further understanding of evolution of palaeogeographical background[J]. JOPC, 2016, 18(3): 315-334.
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