Journal
EARTH AND PLANETARY SCIENCE LETTERS
Volume 388, Issue -, Pages 81-91Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2013.11.049
Keywords
atmospheric oxygen; Proterozoic; phosphorus; iron
Categories
Funding
- NASA Headquarters under the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship Program [NNX11AP89H]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Many studies suggest that oxygen has remained near modern levels throughout the Phanerozoic, but was much less abundant from the Great Oxygenation Event around 2.4 Ga until the late Neoproterozoic around 600 Ma (Kump, 2008). Using a simple model, we show that the maintenance of atmospheric pO(2) at similar to 1% of present atmospheric levels (PAL) is inconsistent with modern biogeochemical cycling of carbon, sulfur and iron unless new feedbacks are included. Low oxygen conditions are stable in our model if the flux of phosphorus to the oceans was greatly reduced during the Proterozoic. We propose a mechanism to reduce this flux through the scavenging of phosphate ions with an iron trap driven by greater surface mobility of ferrous iron in a low pO(2) world. Incorporating this feedback leads to two stable equilibria for atmospheric oxygen, the first quantitative hypothesis to explain both Proterozoic and Phanerozoic O-2 concentrations. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available