6533b854fe1ef96bd12af21a

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Climate Over the Ages; Is the Environment Stable?

Heinz DeckerKensal E. Van Holde

subject

ChemistryGreat Oxygenation EventEnvironmental chemistryFerrous saltsmedicineCambrian explosionFerricchemistry.chemical_elementSeawaterBiotaPhotosynthesisCoppermedicine.drug

description

As described in Chaps. 3 and 4, the advent of oxygenic photosynthesis triggered worldwide environmental changes. A world that had been reductive passed over into a state in which free dioxygen was available in the oceans and the atmosphere. We have already described the likely catastrophic effects on an anaerobic biota, but the changes were much broader than that. Dioxygen in the seas led to major changes in seawater chemistry. Iron, which had previously been soluble as ferrous salts, was precipitated in the ferric form. Copper, which had been insoluble in the anaerobic ocean as cuprous sulphide (Cu+-state), now became moderately soluble in the cupric form (Cu++-state).

yearjournalcountryeditionlanguage
2010-09-18
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13179-0_6