A “fertilizer factory at the bottom of the sea” is behind the start of life on Earth two billion years ago!

Scientists have revealed a new piece of the complex recipe for life on planets, and it includes the beginning of a microbial fertilizer factory on the sea floor nearly 2.6 billion years ago.

The first significant rise in oxygen levels on Earth occurred about 2.4 to 2.2 billion years ago, during the early stage of the Great Oxygen Event (GOE), or the Great Oxygenation, the period of time during which the Earth's atmosphere and shallow ocean experienced a rise in oxygen for the first time. The first during the era of the first pioneers.

Scientists still aren't sure why and how the Great Oxygen Event occurred.

Some believe it was triggered by high levels of phosphorous in the ocean, which led to photosynthesis and increased oxygen production, while others believe it may be linked to reduced release of reactive gases from volcanoes, which use up less of the oxygen being produced.

Now, a team of international scientists, led by the University of Leeds, has used a new technique to measure the circulation of phosphorous between the ocean and the sea floor in 2.6 billion-year-old rocks from South Africa, which led to the Great Oxygen Event.

Laboratory measurements from these rocks show that the process of recycling phosphorous back into the seawater feeds photosynthetic bacteria, increasing oxygen levels.

Their study, published in Nature Geoscience, concluded that establishing a "sea-floor fertilizer factory" was a prerequisite for rising oxygen levels on Earth, and could be an important factor in other planets' ability to support complex life.

The research was led by Lewis Alcott, now from Yale University in the US, while he was completing his Ph.D. at the School of Earth and Environment in Leeds.

"This process may be essential for a planet becoming oxygenated and thus eventually able to host complex life," he said. "Decoding the recipe for an oxygen-rich environment could help us assess the possibility of similar events occurring on other planets."

Lead author of the study, Professor Simon Bolton from the School of Earth and Environment in Leeds, says: "The key part of this recipe is the availability of sulfate, as it is an important component of the recycling process. So, abundance of sulfur can also be an important requirement for an oxygen-rich world."

The rise of atmospheric oxygen during the Great Oxygen Event about 2.4 billion years ago was a defining shift in the evolution of global chemical and geochemical cycles and life on Earth.

However, a growing body of research has shown that cyanobacteria began producing oxygen several hundred million years before the Great Oxygen Event.

Study co-author Dr Andre Becker, from the University of California Riverside, said: 'This initial production of oxygen led to an increase in seawater sulfate, and this triggered the recycling process, allowing oxygen production rates to increase enough to supply oxygen to the atmosphere.

"This study not only enhances our understanding of the history of our planet, but also helps us understand its current processes," explains the study's supervisor and co-author, Dr. Benjamin Mills from the College of Earth and Environment.

"There is a concern that the phosphorous recycling process itself has contributed to dangerous hypoxic events in the oceans, because although it supplies oxygen to the atmosphere, it actually removes oxygen from the ocean when photosynthetic microbes decompose."

"It's starting to do this now as part of climate change," he noted. "Because of a combination of rising temperatures and the increased use of phosphorous as agricultural fertilizer, oxygen levels in the oceans are declining."

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