Earths ancient prehistory, as implied by analysis of Australian rock strata, seems to have had no oxygen for the first three gigayears, (thousands of millions of years, millions of millennia) . There was ocean, and photosynthetic bacteria, but for a very long time the only effect of the oxygen was to produce ferric oxide from dissolved (presumably ferrous) iron. The followed the conversion of the atmospheric methane to water vapor and carbon dioxide, and two waves of ice ages as the oceans froze over, because 44 tons of carbon dioxide from 16 tons of methane i (equal numbers of molecules) has far less greenhouse gas effect.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 22:29:09 +0000
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