Earth rotation slows down and may be why we have oxygen for life
Since the formation of about 4.5 billion years ago, the land rotation has gradually slowed down, so its day has gradually increased.
Although the slowdown of the earth does not overlook people’s time, it is sufficient to make significant changes compared to ages. Based on 2021 In a study, one of these changes is probably the most significant of all, at least for us: the days of elongation are related to the oxygen of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Specifically, blue -green algae (or cyanobacteria), which appeared and reproduced about 2.4 billion years ago, could have produced more oxygen than metabolic by -products as Earth days have increased longer.
View the video below where you will find a summary of the study.
“The long -term issue of the Earth sciences was how the Earth’s atmosphere received oxygen and what factors controlled when this oxygen took place,” Explained by microbiologist Gregory Dick from the University of Michigan.
“Our study shows that the Earth revolves, in other words, its day length – may have had a great impact on the Earth’s oxygen model and time.”
There are two main components of this story, which at first glance do not seem to have much in common. First, the back of the earth slows down.
The reason why the Earth’s rotation slows down is that the moon on the planet attracts gravitational attraction, which causes slowing down, as the Moon is slowly withdrawing.
Microbiologist Gregory Dick from the University of Michigan. (University of Michigan)
Based on a fossil record, we know that the days were correct 18 hours 1.4 billion years ago and Half an hour shorter than they are today 70 million years ago. Evidence shows we get 1.8 milliseconds over a century;
The second component is known as the Great Oxidation event – when cyanobacteria emerged in such large quantities that the Earth’s atmosphere suffered a sudden, significant increase in oxygen.
Without this oxidation, scientists believe that life, as we know, could not occur; So, although cyanobacteria today can supplement the lateral moment, we probably wouldn’t be here without them.
We do not yet know about this event, including such burning questions as to why it happened when it did, not ever in the history of the Earth.
Scientists working with cyanobacterial microbes needed to combine points. Microbial mats, which are believed to be the analogue of cyanobacteria responsible for the great oxidation event, can be found on the middle island of Lake Huron.
Purple cyanobacteria, which produce oxygen through photosynthesis and white germs that metabolize sulfur, compete with the microbial mat on the lake bed.
At night, white microbes rise to the top of the microbial mat and do the subject of their sulfur rupture. When the day breaks and the sun rises high enough in the sky, white germs retreat and purple cyanobacteria rise up.
“Now they can start photosynthetized and produce oxygen,” said geomycrobiologist Judith Klatt of Max Planck Institute of Marine Microbiology in Germany.
“But it takes a few hours for them to actually start to go, there is a long retardation in the morning. Cianobacteria seem to be quite late than the morning people.”
This means the time of the day when cyanobacteria can pump oxygen is very limited – and it is this fact that caught the attention of the Michigan University Oceanographer Brian’s or Arbico. He wondered if the length of the exchange day during the history of the Earth was influenced by photosynthesis.
“It may be that a similar type of microbial competition has contributed to the delay of oxygen production on early land,” Klekt explained.
To show this hypothesis, the team performed experiments and microbial measurements both in the natural environment and in the laboratory. They also conducted detailed modeling research based on their results to associate sunlight with microbial oxygen production, and microbial oxygen production with earth history.
“Intuition shows that two 12 hours of days should be similar to one 24 -hour.
“However, there are no oxygen release from bacterial mats because it is limited by the speed of molecular diffusion. This subtle disconnection of oxygen release from sunlight is in the heart of the mechanism.”
These results were included in the global oxygen -level models, and the team found that the prolonging days were associated with the increase in the oxygen of the Earth, not only in a large oxidation event, but also another, second atmospheric oxygen, known as neoprotherosic oxygen event around 550-800 million years ago.
“We associate the laws of physics on very different scales, from molecular diffusion to the mechanics of planets. We show that there is an essential connection between the length of the day and how much oxygen can release microbes,” Chenn said.
“It’s quite interesting. This way we associate the dance of the microbial mat molecules with the dance of our planet and its moon.”
The investigation has been published Geoscience of nature;
The previous version of this article was published in 2021. August