TimescaleO2 build-up in the Earth's atmosphere. Red and green lines represent the range of the estimates while time is measured in billions of years ago (Ga).
Stage 1 (3.85–2.45 Ga): Practically no O2 in the atmosphere. The oceans were also largely anoxic – with the possible exception of O2 in the shallow oceans.
Stage 2 (2.45–1.85 Ga): O2 produced, rising to values of 0.02 and 0.04 atm, but absorbed in oceans and seabed rock. (Great Oxidation Event)
Stage 3 (1.85–0.85 Ga): O2 starts to gas out of the oceans, but is absorbed by land surfaces. No significant change in oxygen level.
Stages 4 and 5 (0.85 Ga – present): Other O2 reservoirs filled; gas accumulates in atmosphere.[1] Stage 4 is known as the neoproterozoic oxygenation event.
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 Paleoproterozoicera when the Earth's atmosphere and shallow seas first experienced a rise in the concentration of freeoxygen.[3] This began approximately 2.460–2.426 Ga (billion years) ago during the Siderian period and ended approximately 2.060 Ga ago during the Rhyacian.[4] Geological, isotopic and chemical evidence suggests that biologically produced molecular oxygen (dioxygen or O2) started to accumulate in the Archeanprebiotic atmosphere due to microbialphotosynthesis, and eventually changed it from a weakly reducing atmosphere practically devoid of oxygen into an oxidizing one containing abundant free oxygen,[5] with oxygen levels being as high as 10% of modern atmospheric level by the end of the GOE.[6]
^Sosa Torres, Martha E.; Saucedo-Vázquez, Juan P.; Kroneck, Peter M.H. (2015). "The Magic of Dioxygen". In Kroneck, Peter M.H.; Sosa Torres, Martha E. (eds.). Sustaining Life on Planet Earth: Metalloenzymes Mastering Dioxygen and Other Chewy Gases. Metal Ions in Life Sciences volume 15. Vol. 15. Springer. pp. 1–12. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-12415-5_1. ISBN978-3-319-12414-8. PMID25707464.