>
>Kinda the final blow to those who still think the early earth had a reducing
>atmosphere....
>
Thanks for posting this art. I had thought that the last nail had been
driven into the reducing atomosphere's coffin years ago. In any event,
I wanted to make sure I understood the notation Ga. I presume
the authors are saying the Earths atmosphere may have been
oxidizing as long as 3.0 billion years ago?
My understanding is that present wisdom indicates that
the Earth's atmosphere never was reducing, even at the
time of the origin of life (somewhere between 3.5 and 4.0
billion years ago). IMHO, this is a major nail in the coffin
of classical soup theory since Miller-Urey experiments
have at least 2 orders of magnitude smaller yields of amino
acids in neutral and mildly reducing atmospheres.
Brian Harper
Associate Professor
Applied Mechanics
Ohio State University