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| Seminars in Natural History |
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David Catling University of Bristol The rise of oxygen in Earth’s early atmosphere The oxygenation of the Earth’s early atmosphere is one of the most important events in Earth history because it changed the possibilities for biological evolution and altered chemical interactions in the atmosphere, ocean and crust. However, evidence suggests that atmospheric oxygen did not rise immediately after the advent of oxygenic photosynthesis. Also sulfur isotopes indirectly suggest the presence of a methane-rich atmosphere that preceded an oxygen-rich one. I will describe why key environmental changes from the Archean to Paleoproterozoic are more accurately described as a “great decline of methane and its consequences” rather than the simplistic “rise of oxygen” that the textbooks would have us believe. Tuesday, 4th November, 2008, at 16.00, in Lilla hörsalen, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Frescativägen 40, Stockholm |
| The LET’S seminar series at the Swedish Museum of Natural History is devoted to issues of wide interest for natural history. Topics may range from cosmology to conservation biology, with an emphasis on recent scientific advances and cross-discipline interactions. Our aim is to present lectures that will communicate the excitement of modern science to a varied but scientifically informed audience of scientists, students and laymen. |
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Web page by Stefan Bengtson
http://www.nrm.se/pz/lets/lets_catling.html.en Latest update: 2008-10-10 |