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Early Earth

Oxygen for heavy-metal fans

Chromium isotopes provide an eyebrow-raising history of oxygenation of Earth's atmosphere. Not least, it seems that oxygen might have all but disappeared half a billion years after its initial rise.

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Figure 1: Tracking oxygen above and below.

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Lyons, T., Reinhard, C. Oxygen for heavy-metal fans. Nature 461, 179–180 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/461179a

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