Oxygen Rises Just Before Life Arrives
TNRTB Archive – Retained for reference information
Deep-sea sediments support the assertion of RTB’s creation model that a supernatural Designer transformed Earth from an uninhabitable state to one supportive of human life. Abundant oxygen ranks as one of the most essential requirements for animal life. However, until 600 million years ago, Earth’s deep oceans contained very little oxygen compared to their current levels. Studies of iron ratios from deposits in Newfoundland reveal that the oxygen content of the deep ocean dramatically increased 580 million years ago, a mere 5 million years before large, structurally complex Ediacaran organisms (which lived on the sea floor) appeared. Such results comport well with a model positing that the God of the Bible transformed Earth to support more-complex organisms and then quickly introduced those organisms into the biosphere.
- Don E. Canfield, Simon W. Poulton, and Guy M. Narbonne, “Late-Neoproterozoic Deep-Ocean Oxygenation and the Rise of Animal Life,” Science 315 (2007): 92-95.
- https://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/315/5808/92
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