Technical comment on “Reexamination of 2.5-Ga ‘whiff’ of oxygen interval points to anoxic ocean before GOE”
Ariel D. Anbar, Roger Buick, Gwyneth W. Gordon, Aleisha C. Johnson, Brian Kendall, Timothy W. Lyons, Chadlin M. Ostrander, Noah J. Planavsky, Christopher T. Reinhard, Eva E. Stüeken
Abstract
Many lines of inorganic geochemical evidence suggest transient “whiffs” of environmental oxygenation before the Great Oxidation Event (GOE). Slotznick et al. assert that analyses of paleoredox proxies in the Mount McRae Shale, Western Australia, were misinterpreted and hence that environmental O 2 levels were persistently negligible before the GOE. We find these arguments logically flawed and factually incomplete.
Topics & Concepts
Anoxic watersOil shaleEvent (particle physics)GeologyInterval (graph theory)PaleontologyOxygenChemistryOceanographyMathematicsPhysicsCombinatoricsQuantum mechanicsOrganic chemistryPaleontology and Stratigraphy of FossilsGeological and Geochemical AnalysisGeochemistry and Elemental Analysis