New Oxygen research; from rocks, higher earlier (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, August 25, 2016, 15:33 (2791 days ago) @ David Turell

New research studying trapped air in rocks pushes back in time that higher levels of Oxygen was present 813 million years ago:-https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160822174234.htm-"Geologists are using new direct methods to measure the Earth's oxygenation. They identified, for the first time, exactly how much oxygen was in Earth's atmosphere 813 million years ago -- 10.9 percent. This finding, they say, demonstrates that oxygenation on Earth occurred 300 million years earlier than previously concluded from indirect measurements.-***-"The team's study identifies, for the first time, exactly how much oxygen was in Earth's atmosphere 813 million years ago -- 10.9 percent. This finding, they say, demonstrates that oxygenation on Earth occurred 300 million years earlier than previously concluded from indirect measurements.-"'Diversity of life emerges right around this time period," Benison said. "We used to think that to have diversity of life we needed specific things, including a certain amount of oxygen. (The findings) show that not as much oxygen is required for organisms to develop." (my bold)-"Fluid inclusions, the microscopic bubbles of liquids and gases in rock salt, can contain trapped air. Analysis of this trapped air allows researchers to understand past surface conditions and how oxygen has changed over the course of geologic history.-"The team used a quadrupole mass spectrometer to study the air pockets. Carefully crushing minute rock salt crystals released water and gases into the mass spectrometer, which then analyzed for various compounds of oxygen and other gases.-"'There are a lot of different environmental conditions specific from the past that we can find occurring in modern samples," Benison said. "This tells us about the range of conditions on Earth and also has implications for Mars.'"-Comment: That amount of oxygen is half the level existing now, and folks at high altitude easily live at oxygen pressures equal to that amount. Note the bolded comment that high oxygen levels are perhaps not needed for diversity in life forms. That removes from consideration that the Cambrian explosion almost 300 million years later was triggered by oxygen. The Cambrian origin story remains as mysterious as ever for materialists to consider. Perhaps God dabbled!