What is it about?
The ~2.06-billion-year-old lavas we studied in Russia erupted after the end of the Great Oxidation Event, which started ~2.4 billion years ago when atmospheric oxygen levels suddenly rose several orders of magnitude beyond where they had ever been before, and then a few hundred million years later are thought to have crashed. In our work we use uranium, thorium, and lead isotope systematics to date the extensive oxidation of these lavas to shortly after their eruption, when the uranium in them was dissolved and completely removed, requiring much higher oxygen levels than previously postulated following the purported crash in oxygen levels at the end of the Great Oxidation Event.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
A precise temporal trajectory of atmospheric oxygen levels is crucial for understanding what the controls were on the rise of complex life.
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Subaerial oxidative uranium mobilization at the culmination of the Great Oxidation Event, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, September 2025, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2510289122.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
