Earth’s atmosphere has repeatedly been choked in a thick methane haze

[n2doc]

2.5 billion years ago, the Sun was basically invisible from the Earth's surface. Microbes in the oceans pumped methane into the atmosphere, creating a giant cloud of smog that covered the entire planet. Yes, the whole world turned into LA.

If you were to visit Earth at most points in its history, it wouldn't look that different. The continents might be rearranged, but you would still recognize our planet as that familiar pale blue dot. But until about 2.45 billion years ago, Earth was locked in a constant cycle of flipping between clear skies and this hydrocarbon smog. Earth's atmosphere would have looked much like that of Saturn's moon Titan, which is also covered in a methane fog.

This theory of Earth's atmospheric past has been around for a while, but it's only now that an international team of researchers have been able to find definitive proof. By analyzing sediments found in South Africa dating back 2.5 to 2.65 billion years, the team were able to reconstruct the unique atmospheric cycle that then dominated the planet. Writing in Nature Geoscience, they explain the strange push-pull that governed the skies of the early Earth:

We find evidence for oxygen production in microbial mats and localized oxygenation of surface waters. Carbon and sulphur isotopes indicate that this oxygen production occurred under a reduced atmosphere that was periodically rich in methane, consistent with the prediction of a hydrocarbon haze. Our simulations predict transitions between two stable atmospheric states, one with organic haze and the other haze-free. The transitions are presumably governed by variations in the amount of biological methane production during the Archaean eon.

more

http://io9.com/5894667/earths-atmosphere-has-repeatedly-been-choked-in-a-thick-methane-haze

[d_r]

1. so has my bathroom

sorry, couldn't help it

[Motown_Johnny]

2. I was thinking Rush at a Mexican restaurant

but yours works too

[Downwinder]

3. And since that time nature has been

fixing carbon in coal, natural gas and petroleum. While man in his wisdom is trying to release all of that stored up carbon into the environment in two centuries. At what point does carbon competing with man for free oxygen become significant?

[dewawi]

4. Amazing

You could argue your posting here after all that poisonous past of our planet is just sheer dumb luck and chance.....

or you could thank GOD.

[Riftaxe]

5. Which one?

[krispos42]

8. You'll be a long time waiting

'd

[enki23]

7. Thank you God for finding a way to temporarily fix that methane problem

...that you, I'm told, made in the first place. and... well, yeah. thanks. I'm very grateful that you didn't decide to make intelligent life out of something adapted to a hydrocarbon atmosphere. That sure would have sucked. Would have hated that. Would have been hell on the synthetic fabrics.

I also want to thank you, God, for making an atmosphere with a me shaped hole in it that follows me wherever I go. I really appreciate that.

[Odin2005]

6. Fascinating!