Shale Cores (IMAGE)

University of Washington

Shale Cores

Caption

These are drill-cores of rocks from the Mount McRae Shale in Western Australia. Previous analysis showed a “whiff” of atmospheric oxygen preceding the Great Oxidation Event, 2.4 billion years ago. New analyses show a slightly earlier spike in minerals produced by volcanoes, which may have fertilized early communities of microbes to produce the oxygen.

Credit

Roger Buick/University of Washington

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