Roughly 2.3 billion years ago, an explosion of marine life helped form the mountains we know on earth, including the famed Himalayas, according to a study by researchers from the University of Aberdeen.
Understanding the Great Oxygenation Event
The Great Oxygenation event, according to BiologyOnline, is characterized by the sudden appearance of dioxygen in the planet's atmosphere as a result of numerous biological activities, especially the photosynthetic activity of cyanobacteria.
It is believed that cyanobacteria, such as algae, triggered the life-giving event even when they produced oxygen 2.3 billion years in the past. The sudden appearance of oxygen in the planet's biosphere, air, land, and sea, essential for the multicellularity of life, was a crucial moment for the planet's development.
Biologically speaking, oxygen plays a vital role in numerous biochemical and physiological processes known as cellular respiration.
Great Oxygenation and Large-Scale Plankton Eradication Led to Mountains and Life on Earth
Researchers found that after the sudden rise of dioxygen in the plane's atmosphere billions of years ago, an abundance of nutrients filled the Earth's seas, which resulted in the birth of cyanobacteria and plankton.
Once large-scale eradication of plankton occurred, they fell to the ocean floor and formed what we know as graphite that played a vital role in lubricating the breakages of rocks into slabs. This then allowed gigantic slabs to move on top of each other, eventually forming mountains over the next several millions of years, reports DailyMail.
In a statement with PhysOrg, lead researchers Professor John Parnell explains that mountains are a key part of landscapes; however, big mountain chains were only formed halfway through the planet's history roughly 2 billion years ago. In a study published in the journal Nature, titled "Increased biomass and carbon burial 2 billion years ago triggered mountain building," researchers note that geological record from the period includes definitive evidence of the abundance of organic matter in the world's oceans, which after death were preserved as graphite in shale.
Although mountain formations are often associated with collisions of tectonic plates, which cause huge slabs of rock to thrust skywards, the study cites that planktons play a key role in creating natural structures. Once the plankton that boomed into life 2.3 billion years ago died off, their carbon-rich remains sunk to the ocean floor, transforming into graphite which acted as a natural lubricant.
According to the study, the plankton underwent numerous developments before their inevitable deaths. This includes growing larger and developing sheaths that increase the mass of cellular carbon. The researchers note that this sparked a widespread formation of high mountains on the planet, with the most appearing about 1.95-1.65 billion years ago.
Although it has long been believed that the process of tectonics was lubricated, recent research shows that it was, in fact, due to the abundance of carbon in the ocean that played a vital role in the crustal thickening that eventually built the planet's mountain ranges.
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