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Geochemistry

Oxygenation by a changing crust

Serpentine minerals in Earth's early upper continental crust suppressed atmospheric oxygen levels until the upper crust became granitic.

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Figure 1: Serpentinites from the Isua Greenstone Belt of southern West Greenland, which is more than 3.7 billion years old.

ELIS HOFFMANN

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Correspondence to J. Elis Hoffmann.

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Hoffmann, J. Oxygenation by a changing crust. Nature Geosci 10, 713–714 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo3038

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