Evolution of the atmosphere and oceans

H. D. Holland*, B. Lazar, M. McCaffrey

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

139 Scopus citations

Abstract

The residence times of most constituents of the atmosphere and oceans are small fractions of the age of the Earth and, in general, their rate of output has been nearly equal to their rate of input. We are disturbing a number of these dynamic equilibria quite severely. The mineralogy of marine evaporites rules out drastic changes in the composition of sea water during the last 900 Myr. The chemistry of soils formed more than 1,000 Myr ago suggests that the atmosphere then contained significantly more CO2 and less O 2 than at present. Hydrogen peroxide may well have been the principal oxidant and formaldehyde the main reductant in rain water between 3,000 and 1,000 Myr ago. Major changes in atmospheric chemistry since that time are almost certainly related to the evolution of the biosphere.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)27-33
Number of pages7
JournalNature
Volume320
Issue number6057
DOIs
StatePublished - 1986
Externally publishedYes

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