13 lines
819 B
TeX
13 lines
819 B
TeX
\section{The Great Oxidation Extinction}
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\lettrine[lraise=0.1]{A}{bout} 2.4 billion years ago, bacteria developed photosynthesis --- the ability to split water using sunlight and release oxygen as a byproduct.
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At the time, oxygen was poison to virtually all life.
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Photosynthesis was so successful that it brought about a mass-extinction of life --- caused by life itself. The atmosphere was permanently transformed.
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And yet: that catastrophe was the precondition for an oxygen-based metabolism far more efficient than anything that came before. Without it, complex animal life is thermodynamically impossible.
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Eventually an equilibrium was reached between carbon-consuming plants and oxygen-breathing animals. Today, about 21\% of Earth's atmosphere is oxygen.
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Every breath you take is downstream of that crisis.
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