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The Great Oxygenation Event [0]. Arguably the planet's first mass extinction. To say that nothing we have done to the planet is as bad for the environment as t
by gizmo686 8y ago
The Great Oxygenation Event [0]. Arguably the planet's first mass extinction.
To say that nothing we have done to the planet is as bad for the environment as the Great Oxygenation Event would be to pat ourselves on the back for not literally poisoning the atmosphere.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- cbkeller 8y agoGeologist here. Yeah, there are a few places you can find microbial survivors of the GOE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_sulfur_bacteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_sulfur_bacteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_sulfur_bacteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_sulfur_bacteria Obligate anaerobic photoautotrophs: they photosynthesize, and need light to survive, but don't produce (and are killed by) O2. Unfortunately for them, post-GOE, there aren't many habitats that are anoxic but still have much light! There's at least one clade of "green sulfur bacteria" that apparently lives off the basically-invisible glow from a black smoker at a mid-ocean ridge: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1166624/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1166624/ fascinating stuff!
- Balgair 8y agoPBS Eons is a great youtube channel on Earth's biological history. It's very well done stuff. Their 'Purple Earth' video is a good layman's intro to some of the per-oxygenation earth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIA-k_bBcL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIA-k_bBcL0 The early biological history of Earth has a few 'Colored Earth' phases: Red-Purple-Green-White-Blue(hypothetically).