Atmosphere of Saturn's Titan --"Similar to Earth's 2.4 Billion Years Ago"

 

           

 

Two-and-a-half billion years ago, the Earth's atmosphere was rich in hydrocarbons, similar to Saturn's moon, Titan. Before Earth's atmosphere ditched methane and began accumulating oxygen, though, our planet appears to have cycled back and forth every few million years between  the two states years a hydrocarbon haze and clear skies. A sunlight-blocking haze most certainly affected the evolution of microbes that depend on light to photosynthesise and contributed to the delay before the final oxygenation of the atmosphere.

But some 2.4 billion years ago, photosynthesising microbes generated enough oxygen for it create the "great oxygenation event." But the reason for that lag, says bio-geochemist Aubrey Zerkle of Newcastle University, UK, "is one of the great mysteries of Earth's history."

Zerkle and colleagues have analyzed the ancient atmospheric conditions before that oxygenation event, by analysing the chemical make-up of a core of ocean sediment deposited on a region of South Africa which was flooded between 2.65 and 2.5 billion years ago, when microbes ruled a methane-bound world and Earth's continents began forming in earnest.

During the 150-million-year interval, the researchers found that the oxygen produced by photosynthetic organisms was staying in the ground rather than entering the atmosphere when methane dominated the atmosphere, resulting in the thick hydrocarbon fog. But at other times during the interval, the amount of methane in the atmosphere decreased and the haze cleared.

The Daily Galaxy via newscientist.com and Nature Geosciences

Related articles

Image of the Day --NASA Finds Vast River System on Saturn's Moon Titan

Sulfate-Feeding Microbes Active in Earth's Oceans 2.7 Billion Years Ago

Ice on Titan's Lakes: "May Host an Exotic Form of Life" --NASA/JPL

Titan's 'Earthscape' --"Much Older than It Appears"

Microbes Survive, and Maybe Thrive, High In the Atmosphere

Craters Quickly Hidden On Titan

Comments

[Truth About Our Solar System]

"But some 2.4 billion years ago, photosynthesising microbes generated enough oxygen for it create the "great oxygenation event." But the reason for that lag, says bio-geochemist Aubrey Zerkle of Newcastle University, UK, "is one of the great mysteries of Earth's history."

My new model of our solar system's terrestrial planetary formation is able to explain this mystery and many others. Click on my "name" to learn more about this amazing discovery.

[Ultra-Humanite]

So you tools will censor an obscenity but not a nutjob who continually spouts his diseased nonsense? That's all I need to know to never come to this website again. Congratulations on supporting idiocy and ignorance.