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Oxygen began building up in the atmosphere at approximately 1.85 Ga. At current rates of primary production, today's concentration of oxygen could be produced by photosynthetic organisms in 2,000 years. [ 4] In the absence of plants, the rate of oxygen production by photosynthesis was slower in the Precambrian, and the concentrations of O 2 ...
The oxygen cycle is the biogeochemical cycle of oxygen atoms between different oxidation states in ions, oxides, and molecules through redox reactions within and between the spheres/reservoirs of the planet Earth. [ 1] The word oxygen in the literature typically refers to the most common oxygen allotrope, elemental/diatomic oxygen (O 2 ), as it ...
Stages 4 and 5 (0.85 Ga – present): Other O 2 reservoirs filled; gas accumulates in atmosphere. [ 1] The Great Oxidation Event ( GOE) or Great Oxygenation Event, also called the Oxygen Catastrophe, Oxygen Revolution, Oxygen Crisis or Oxygen Holocaust, [ 2] was a time interval during the Earth 's Paleoproterozoic era when the Earth's ...
To use this stored chemical energy, an organism's cells metabolize the organic compounds through cellular respiration. Photosynthesis plays a critical role in producing and maintaining the oxygen content of the Earth's atmosphere, and it supplies most of the biological energy necessary for complex life on Earth.
Photosynthesis had another major impact. Oxygen was toxic; much life on Earth probably died out as its levels rose in what is known as the oxygen catastrophe. Resistant forms survived and thrived, and some developed the ability to use oxygen to increase their metabolism and obtain more energy from the same food. [113]
Ocean world. Earth 's surface is dominated by the ocean, which forms 75% of Earth's surface. An ocean world, ocean planet or water world is a type of planet that contains a substantial amount of water in the form of oceans, as part of its hydrosphere, either beneath the surface, as subsurface oceans, or on the surface, potentially submerging ...
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all of Earth's water is contained in its global ocean, covering 70.8% of Earth's crust.
The Oceanic carbon cycle is a central process to the global carbon cycle and contains both inorganic carbon (carbon not associated with a living thing, such as carbon dioxide) and organic carbon (carbon that is, or has been, incorporated into a living thing). Part of the marine carbon cycle transforms carbon between non-living and living matter.