CORRECTION: the gray BIF layers are the hematite (Fe mineral) and the red layers are actually Fe-stained chert! (all the info about the BIFs still applies though) Thank you @aidenking44 for catching this mix up, my bad! ;)
I'm just watching this for the first time now. It always makes me chuckle when you and other amazing science- and book- tubers apologize for going long. We want MORE of your great stuff. We want even more detail. If things get long, there's the pause button.
@@brianbuch1 Haha, wow I love this comment, it seriously made my day. I am so glad you enjoy the details! Because many people tell me I should cut down on them, so people like you are why I don't back down on the details :) I also just think they are very important and more interesting than people give them credit for, so I appreciate this comment very much, it gives me confirmation that details are GOOD ;D
@@GEOGIRL While I have your attention, have you read "Biosphere" by Vernadsky? It's now almost a century old, but it was one of the first attempts to link the mineral to the biological. Of course we know a great deal more than he did then.
@@brianbuch1 Correct you are. I obsessively study science for personal understanding as if I am preparing to get a degree. Because I am making up for so many decades of scientific illiteracy I'm studying as many fields and subjects as I can, so I use videos as templates to find further info and texts. Because of that sometimes I won't be focused on a specific subject for a week or two but I go back to videos where I know I can find the info to raise me up. Videos like this are still above my level but that's the good thing, I can watch them again and again and use it to pull myself up in understanding. If a video is too basic and short, you're not going to develop from it really.
So did the bands form due to local fluctuations in the oxygen levels as the GOE built up? Does the hematite indicated only reduced iron was available, and the stained chert indicate only oxidized iron was available? About how long did each layer take to form? As you csan tell, I love the details, so keep them coming!
Hey! I’ve just been to the London, UK Museum of Natural History and I touched a huge sample with iron oxide and now I’m watching your video having just had this experience, just gorgeous! Apparently we have one of the best collections of meteorites in the world so I feel blessed, I’ve seen quite a few which is amazing. Come visit us in the UK Geo Girl ❤ Details for plaque: “Western Australia, Australia, c 2.6 billion years old AQ-PEG-2016-33 This rock was donated by Rio Tinto and came from the traditional iands of the Eastern Guruma People in the Pilbara region of Australia.”
I have my Geobiology final tomorrow and I just wanted to say thank you for the beautifully in-depth explanation! Cleared up a lot of confusion I had, you're the best! Keep up the great work!
Like very much your work. Amazingly fascinating those deep time geological events. You are remarkable as a woman too! Thanks for feeding my geological enthusiasm! Votre ami Canadien. Merci beaucoup!
Waooo, very well explained such a complex issue. I will have to go deeper into the S- and Mo-isotopes before watching this video again. Thank you Rachel
I see know. "In contrast to algae, cyanobacteria do not have a real cell nucleus and are therefore, as prokaryotes, not comparable to the eukaryotic organisms (green algae, etc.) that are commonly referred to as “algae”." So cyanobacteria do photosynthesize but are NOT algae. That means they contain endosymbiotic organelles such as chloroplasts, BUT these organelles are NOT part of the genetic material determined by the nucleus of the bacteria during cytosis. Organelles of endosymbiotic properties can instead indepedently duplicate themselves within the cell. Thus, when cytosis of the bacteria sets in, the organelles are distributed to each of the parting individual bacteria cells - unless the cytosis is blocked... WAIT A MINUTE... cyanobacteria DO NOT HAVE A REAL CELL NULEUS and are therefore, as PROKARYOTES, NOT COMPARABLE to the EUCARYOTE organisms (green algae, etc.) that are commonly referred to as “algae”. Duh. I get it now, BUT if these bacteria have NO REAL NUCLEUS, it is no wonder they can not be described as EUCARYOTES - even if they do have endosymbiotic organelles... How confusing...! Hmm... but I guess that although Chloroplasts can duplicate themselves but probably have no nucleus either, they are perhaps not even potentially procaryotic... (Written on Monday, the 6th of November 2023, using a quote from Wikipedia.) Aha - photosynthesis is a process in Chloroplasts, which are in turn one sort of Plastid. "Plastids are a group of essential, heterogenous semi-autonomous organelles". (Wikipedia)
I would never have guessed that molybdenum deposits would have anything to do with an oxidation event. I have collected at a half dozen locations in the northeast for molybdenite, and the associated minerals differ. I think most of the New England red beds are Triassic. I'm not sure about the red jasper and quartzite.
Great question! At the time of the great oxidation event, eukaryotes (and thus, mitochondria) likely didn't exist. It is thought that eukayotes evolved around 2 billion years ago, and this GOE even occurred around 2.4 billion years ago. So technically mitochondria did not play any role. However, the microbes that would later evolve into mitochondria may have. However, it was mainly cyanobacteria that played the largest role since they photosynthesized. So if we think in terms of organelles, cyanobacteria later became chloroplasts in photosynthetic eukaryotic cells, so chloroplasts (or at least their 'ancestors') played a larger role than the 'ancestors' of mitochondria ;)
Wow! From the beginning It was like you were driving an Audi R8, full throttle, while I was trying to catch up in a Vintage Ford Model T … There was so much information, that I know I’ll have to view it again. I somewhat knew about the GOE, but it’s like comparing a pamphlet to an encyclopedia. I’m always amazed at your vast amount of knowledge :)
Right? Sometimes I gotta go lick my wounds and watch 'History of the Earth' for the good science feels after Geo Girl just overloaded by brain. That's the beauty of video, you can watch it again and again until you get it.
I would have to do some research on that, to know for sure, but the timing definitely suggests so! To my current understanding I think it is because as soon as photosynthesizing cyanobacteria came about, they took so much CO2 out of the atmosphere that Earth cooled and went into an 'ice-house' climate which caused the beginning of the snowball earth event. However, I will look further into it and maybe I'll make another video on the relation between the two.
@@GEOGIRL I believe it was more the rapid removal of methane (potent greenhouse gas) through oxidation than removal of co2 effect. Methane was by product of earlier life.
Banded iron formations also could have partially formed due to direct oxidation by anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria, which use Fe as electron donor thus oxidising Fe2 to Fe3. This type of photosynthesis have been discovered relatively recently, but it could have been common before the GOE, when Fe2 was still present in huge amounts
Hey Geo Girl! I love your take on all this and you are so right. I've been fascinated with this line of geology for most of my 72 years. I live in Australia where, in Western Australia, you will find the perfect confirmation of what you are speaking about. It's called the Pilbara.
Great vid! (Looking forward to checking all your other stuff now) Another reason why higher O2 levels caused the Cambrian Explosion was that it made predation by active predators possible (,as chasing food takes a lot of respiration). Prey had to rapidly and continuously evolve to survive, beginning the predator-prey arms race that still exists today.
Hello wiz bang marvel! Apologies if you covered this elsewhere, but is there agreement about how and why photosynthesis emerged? Also, if I may, what is the physics and biochemical basis of evolutions supreme adaptive plasticity which my humble self considers the greatest marvel the universe has realized! I think the benighted physics community doesn't allow the fact of this marvel to penitrate, preoccupied as they are by mere black holes.
Oh what a great question, I actually have a whole video about the evolution of photosynthesis: th-cam.com/video/x5wVW3OGg7c/w-d-xo.html But the short answer is yes and no, we have some good ideas, but I don't think we will ever be certain of exactly how it arose. In terms of 'why' we know that it was due to random mutations that just so happened to allow the production of pigment in early organisms that eventually evolved to use that pigment to absorb light and eventually convert that absorbed light into chemical energy, but again, there is no reason 'why' these mutations happen since they are random, but the reason why these mutations were successful (got passed down and diversified) is because photosynthesis was very advantageous for these early organisms especially in nutrient depleted environments. Hope that helps :D
@19:11 Is there any known correlation between levels of Oxygen and how it effects DNA and the rates at which DNA can change? Is there any correlation as DNA becomes more complex that it can then become even more complex. The analogy in my head is a CPU processor. A Current AMd ryzen 7 processor now has 8 cores. All Cpus once had one core with much larger individual transistors. Once there is a certain level of DNA can it produce more information and thus create more genetic variety? As a cpus computing power increased the more powerful CPUS could then be used to make even more powerful cpus exponentially although of course the cpus are not doing it on their own like DNA.
Regarding the red beds, we can tell that the red coating is in situ, or early diagenetic, alteration. One way we can tell is because the iron oxide surface coating on red beds is not just on the surface of the rock, but actually coats the surface of each individual grain that makes up the rock. This represents a diagenetic phenomenon that was occurring during burial rather than after. Regarding the BIFs, these are not surface altered, they are the direct precipitation of oxidized iron minerals that we can radiometrically date. Hope that answers your question! :)
Yea, I made a separate video on snowball earth events (th-cam.com/video/MzYy9bEZnbw/w-d-xo.html), including the one coinciding with the GOE, but looking back you're right I should've at least mentioned that that was going on as well during this time :)
Very nice work! I learned a lot, thank you very much, great video. I live in Venezuela, I use to travel to the area called “La Gran Sabana” in the Canaima National Park, there are the famous geological formations of the Tepuis, large table mountains with some rock layers markedly red and green, I suspect that is reminiscent of the GOE ? What do you think? I keep in my house some olive green rocks and other red ones that are a sample of what there is abundant there, however there is very little information on that subject, at least here in Venezuela. Thank you in advance for any information that you can give.
That's awesome, but I am not sure those are BIFs from the GOE, I think the Gran Sabana rocks might be too young (~1.8-1.4 billion years old) to be formed during the GOE event. However, the red layers are likely still due to oxidized iron content. I am just not sure about the green. Unfortunately, I cannot find too much about the geology of this area either. But if you want to look more on your own, I would suggest you use the search terms, "the Precambrian Roraima Groups" or "Guayana Shield". Hope this helps at least a little :)
I think you should think about how oxygen was toxic to simple cells, cells cloned and inherited the oxygen deformation, the bacteria of the ocean, the hydrothermal bacteria beneath the sub surface, how those two finally got reconnected environmentally, and finally what happened when one "ate" the other, but some of the others survived inside and how cells eventually had to change from cloning and become sexual to share half cells to make a healthy baby cell with out inheritance of oxygen damage and how that made it possible for cellular growth
Geo girl, i am a big fan of yours. Have you ever heard of Seven Days of Science with Ben Thomas? They are great guys.. I love to watch you wonderful young scientists.
Would it be correct to assume that through photosynthesis co2 and h2o were converted into sugar and o2. So the same photosynthesis will offset global warming, just like with the increase in large oxygen breathing animals that thrived following the goe, photosynthetic plants and fawna will begin to thrive on an increased amount of co2 in the atmosphere. Plants need carbon in order to produce sugar, they outnumber humans by a very large margin, even if measured by mass. It has been proven in greenhouses that adding co2 into them increases plant growth and fruit and vegetable production is increased. Why then are we fighting against it being in the atmosphere?
Great question! Yea so, we aren’t fighting against it being in the atmosphere, we are fighting against it increasing too much in the atmosphere *too fast*. Because we are releasing it into the the atmosphere too fast (faster than any other point in earth’s history), plants and other photosynthesizing organisms can’t keep up, especially with humans taking away natural environments as well. Additionally, there were many times in earth’s history that global warming caused by co2 increased led to thriving plant life; however, we humans would have gone extinct in those conditions, and we would prefer that not to happen this time. Another thing to keep in mind is if we plant a bunch of trees to fight global warming, it would take longer to help then you might think because all photosynthesizing organisms only take up carbon and release oxygen *during the day* when the sun light hits them. At night, they actually *release carbon*. They do take up more than they release (which is what goes into their biomass which is why they grow), but it is not enough to work *fast*, especially at the rate that co2 is increasing in the atmosphere. So I guess all in all, we gotta keep in mind that conditions favorable for photosynthesizers may not be so favorable for humans. Humans need a very specific climate to live, so we need to find that delicate balance (not too little co2, and not too much, too fast). Hope that helps! Thanks for the interest! :)
Because it changes the climate, plants are specialized to their climates. They're not going to get extra growth if the land has turned to desert under their feet, or flooded out, or the cold that used to keep a beetle away is no longer keeping it away, so hundreds of miles of trees in the midwest are now dead etc. If plants are your answer, you are going to need to be planting tens of billions of tons of them per year.
@@GEOGIRL Have you ever considered gratitude to be a state of matter all to itself? Not sure single celled organisms would understand that or could, but who knows. Though I do know we are nothing without bacteria, and I would guess our body and cells appreciate when our mind gets into a thankful state, probably about the best we can do! It sure is wild that bacteria both helped us, and our survival has depended on keeping us going. Now this has me wanting to know more about bacteria, to see which are related, like the ones in our stomachs! lol Thanks!
@@colubrinedeucecreative Great points! And they aren't just in our stomachs as separate, beneficial organisms to us, but they are also within our own cells! I don't know if you saw my Life Origin's video, but in that one I talk about how all of the organelles (components) within eukaryotes (animal cells, like our own) were once bacterial cells that bigger cells ate and eventually used for certain functions inventing a new, multi-functional cell. For example, plants have chloroplasts that were originally individual cyanobacteria. And we have mitochondria that were originally a different bacterial species! I don't know about you, but I just love that fact, that our cells contain what used to be other individuals that now have evolved to work as a team, it's so incredible to me :D
Yes, oxygen respiration was more efficient . . . But critters needed to evolve with a circulation system before they could get bigger and more complex . . .
Not only did molecular oxygen's greater release of energy enable more complex life forms, it required more complex life forms and processes to protect against oxygen's oxidative/corrosive property.
Just caught up with this channel - far, far to late. I an going to mention a very important point: all organisms require a source of reducing power - in the form of protons or electrons. Early photosynthetic organisms such as the ancestors of green sulfur bacteria used hydrogen sulfide as the source of reducing power. As long as there was plenty of hydrogen sulfide around this was fine since, given the redox potential of H2S/S is pretty low ( -230 mV) so a single quantum of light is sufficient to split H2S and generate NADPH which can be used to form reducing power for further reactions. From an evolutionary point of view this is fine and will (probably) out-compete other photosynthetic processes - that is as long as there is a supply of H2S. There is one material that was ( and is ) vastly more common than sulfide and this is, of course, water. The problem is that water is very, very much more difficult to split with a redox potential of +820mV and requires 4 quantum of light ( in PS2). This requires a still poorly understood set of redox reactions using the multiple oxidation states of manganese ( the full details are still not known with certainty) in what is known as the Kok Cycle in the Oxygen Evolving Complex. To be honest as a biochemist I struggle with transition metal complexes such a Mn ! One other thing to mention: oxygen is a very, very strange molecule. It is a rare example of a stable diradical since it has two unpaired electrons ( note: I am of course talking about triplet oxygen). It reacts readily with materials that also have free electrons ( e.g. iron II - ferrous in old money) but very poorly with molecules that don't - like most organics. I think that will do ;)
Nope, not this video, but I have many other videos that reference lichen and fungi and their impact on geology, climate, and earth history :) In my microbial weathering video: th-cam.com/video/V6nWMzYxsUM/w-d-xo.html In my Life to Land video: th-cam.com/video/Kv-SD__ea3A/w-d-xo.html A little bit in my cell wall/biosorption video: th-cam.com/video/FdhmxDMgGQQ/w-d-xo.html And others I am sure I am forgetting. Although, I would love to do more on fungi, so if you have any ideas or references that would be helpful, please let me know! Thanks :D
Yep! All my references are listed in the video description, let me know if you have trouble finding it or if you have any questions about the references themselves ;)
Two tiny pointless observations. 1. Thank you for using the worm crawl word animation at the beginning of a video. 2. Thank you for not using it all the time. (A little goes a long way.) Thanks for the content. :-)
SO many things came together to cause that event! Here's my video over that event: th-cam.com/video/vcCkU2qtBQU/w-d-xo.html (it was mostly due to weathering from the Rodinia supercontinent breaking up, tectonic subduction and insulation at the time, soil formation which exacerbated weathering, and certain animal species that had just evolved) ;)
was it not enough oxygen for at least sea life forms to grow right after this event ? as deep ocean drops in oxygen it should exclude large animals using oxygen if the theory of gradual oxygen increase is correct
If I understand what you’re asking, it depends on your definition of ‘life’. Yes there was life in the ocean before the GOE and there was new life that evolved right after the GOE (we see the first appearance of eukaryotes in the fossil record around this time), but this life remained single celled until much later (just before the Cambrian) in which more complex multicellular life could evolve due to a multitude of factors but among these factors was an extra jump in oxygen content. So life that we can see with our own eyes wasn’t necessarily around (other than in microbial mats) until about 600 million years ago. Hope this makes since :)
@@GEOGIRL hi, no i meant that if today there are animals far deep in the ocean, at that depth they would get oxygen restricted due to compression and out gassing, and be equal to an ocean with less oxygen at shallow depth as far as breathing goes. so was there any big sea animals prior to cambrian that falsify the theory that oxygen came in steps because large animals in the sea could breath prior to the 2nd oxygen increase ?/ the theory predict large sea animals couldnt exist prior to another oxygen injection, but if large animals today can make it in deep ocean, why cant large animals back then had make it in shallow water
@@jansegal6687 Ah I think I see what you are saying now. Well the first complex multicellular life needed the oxygen to evolve, but that doesn't mean that after that threshold was met (life becoming complex or large) that that life couldn't evolve to go back to the depths of the ocean where oxygen is depleted. Once large life evolved, it was free to diversify and some lineages evolved to survive in oxygen depleted areas with advanced respiration pathways in order to take up enough oxygen. However, I believe the type of life you are talking about that live in the 'deep' ocean today (like sea jelly-type life and bioluminescent deep ocean animals), these organisms appear to be occupying water so deep that it wouldn't have much oxygen, but in fact it does. Just because there is no sunlight, does not mean there is no oxygen at those depths. In fact, bioluminescence is a phenomenon that can only occur in the presence of appreciable oxygen, so the oxygen content of the deep sea today is still much more than even shallow depths before the Cambrian. An additional reason that life had a hard time with biodiversification during the Precambrian is that for complex shallow marine organisms to evolve, they needed available sea floor 'space' which, before the Cambrian, was completely covered in single-celled algal and bacterial mats until a specialized type of mollusk evolved to graze on these mats and cleared the way for life to diversify on the shallow sea floor (see the 'cropping hypothesis' in my Life's Origins video). If you read about the first complex life in the shallow sea, most of this life needed substrates to attach to, life that swam evolved much later from these substrate-attached species, this is why the cropping hypothesis is important. Additional reasons for why large complex life couldn't evolve until the Ediacaran/Cambrian periods are listed in that Life's Origins video as well. But I want to stress that not everything is figured out, what your saying/hypothesizing is extremely interesting and I hope that continued research on this topic teaches us more about the life that was around before the Cambrian. There is so much more to discover, it is so exciting! Hope this helps a little.
@@GEOGIRL thanks girl, yes that helped a lot, happy i found you. i cant quite make out when the 2nd oxygen occurred, can you specify date ? and also specify date of the two snowball earth periods before cambrian and reason around context of these events ? i can not find 'cropping hypothesis
@@jansegal6687 Yea, I am going to eventually do more videos on other oxidation and anoxia (de-oxygenation) events throughout earth's history, and in those I will specify the timing of the subsequent events. I believe the major, well-known snowball earth event was around ~700 million years ago, but I can definitely look further into these ice house events and make videos about them in the future as well. Regarding the cropping hypothesis, see my 'life origins' video (near the end) or just look in the top reference I list in the description for that video.
There is strong evidence that is was a significantly (in a geological timeframe) changing geological environment that essentially allowed the gradual build-up of oxygen in the atmosphere, not one of geological sinks being slowly "filled-up" in the presence of oxygen and the corresponding spike being one of oxygen "running out" or reactive materials in a linear fashion. Essentially, oxygen production had been going on long before the GOE, but a changing geological environment strongly reduced the ability for the oxygen to be "sunk", leading to a net gain in oxygen and most likely a positive feedback loop for oxygen producing bacteria. This video is quite illustrative: - th-cam.com/video/0Py5HIFjdbg/w-d-xo.html
Wow thanks for sharing the video! I love Dr. Anbar, I actually used some of his papers in the making of this and other videos on my channel :) Because of the time frame I try to fit my videos into, I wasn't able to discuss every possible reason for the GOE and its timing, but I agree completely that global geological shifts were occurring that, together with chemical shifts, caused the GOE. Actually, I spent a little more time discussing the possibility of geological/tectonic contribution to the Neoproterozoic oxidation event (NOE) in my video over the NOE if you want to check it out: th-cam.com/video/vcCkU2qtBQU/w-d-xo.html But in general, I completely agree that oxygen producing organisms had been around long before the GOE and the gradual shifts in chemical and geological sinks finally gave way for the build up of molecular O2. :) Although, it is such a cool and evolving topic, I can't wait to see what else comes of GOE research in the near future! :D
Haha yea it is crazy how many names the GOE actually has! The great oxygenation event is one of its other names. But either way works because the oxygenation of the atmosphere and oceans led to the oxidation of all the reduced compounds on earth :)
That is what I am doing; many people unfortunately do not have access to text book information so I am trying my best to make it accessible and understandable. I have come a long way from this video, but I can assure you I do not have ‘too much time’ ;) I am actually a PhD student in geoscience. I post on TH-cam in the little free time that I have because it is the only way that I feel I can make a real impact as a scientist. I hope that makes sense :)
@@GEOGIRL The person who posted this doesn't acknowledge the skill it takes to condense textbooks and research into a lecture, something you have grown to be very good at it. Your presentation skills have developed greatly since this early video. Your current videos are a lot easier to follow for a laymen like me. Nowadays, you would have taken a moment to explain fractionation. Lastly, your impact as a scientist has only just begun. TH-cam has already led to greater opportunities. Your reach is limited only by your energy and enthusiasm, and you have plenty of both. Thank you for making a difference to many young scientists.
I really appreciate your efforts. My daughter has a ph.D in hydrogeology and without these basics, I can’t begin to engage with her! My degrees were in nursing and writing. I can follow the chemistry; the geophysics astonish me. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around “deep geologic time.” @daveanderson718-if you’re looking for upper level geology, You-Tube is hardly the appropriate place, Big Shot.
CORRECTION: the gray BIF layers are the hematite (Fe mineral) and the red layers are actually Fe-stained chert! (all the info about the BIFs still applies though) Thank you @aidenking44 for catching this mix up, my bad! ;)
I'm just watching this for the first time now. It always makes me chuckle when you and other amazing science- and book- tubers apologize for going long. We want MORE of your great stuff. We want even more detail. If things get long, there's the pause button.
@@brianbuch1 Haha, wow I love this comment, it seriously made my day. I am so glad you enjoy the details! Because many people tell me I should cut down on them, so people like you are why I don't back down on the details :) I also just think they are very important and more interesting than people give them credit for, so I appreciate this comment very much, it gives me confirmation that details are GOOD ;D
@@GEOGIRL While I have your attention, have you read "Biosphere" by Vernadsky? It's now almost a century old, but it was one of the first attempts to link the mineral to the biological. Of course we know a great deal more than he did then.
@@brianbuch1
Correct you are.
I obsessively study science for personal understanding as if I am preparing to get a degree. Because I am making up for so many decades of scientific illiteracy I'm studying as many fields and subjects as I can, so I use videos as templates to find further info and texts. Because of that sometimes I won't be focused on a specific subject for a week or two but I go back to videos where I know I can find the info to raise me up.
Videos like this are still above my level but that's the good thing, I can watch them again and again and use it to pull myself up in understanding. If a video is too basic and short, you're not going to develop from it really.
So did the bands form due to local fluctuations in the oxygen levels as the GOE built up? Does the hematite indicated only reduced iron was available, and the stained chert indicate only oxidized iron was available? About how long did each layer take to form? As you csan tell, I love the details, so keep them coming!
Hey! I’ve just been to the London, UK Museum of Natural History and I touched a huge sample with iron oxide and now I’m watching your video having just had this experience, just gorgeous! Apparently we have one of the best collections of meteorites in the world so I feel blessed, I’ve seen quite a few which is amazing. Come visit us in the UK Geo Girl ❤
Details for plaque:
“Western Australia, Australia, c 2.6 billion years old
AQ-PEG-2016-33
This rock was donated by Rio Tinto and came from the traditional iands of the Eastern Guruma People in the Pilbara region of Australia.”
Oh that is so cool!! I hope I get to go visit one day ;D
I have my Geobiology final tomorrow and I just wanted to say thank you for the beautifully in-depth explanation! Cleared up a lot of confusion I had, you're the best! Keep up the great work!
Thank you! I am so glad you found it helpful :)
Fast becoming my favorite geology channel! 💙
Like very much your work. Amazingly fascinating those deep time geological events. You are remarkable as a woman too! Thanks for feeding my geological enthusiasm! Votre ami Canadien. Merci beaucoup!
love your channel!! this channel deserves more subscribers!!
Thank you so much! ;D
Waooo, very well explained such a complex issue. I will have to go deeper into the S- and Mo-isotopes before watching this video again. Thank you Rachel
Thanks! So glad you enjoyed it ;D
I see know. "In contrast to algae, cyanobacteria do not have a real cell nucleus and are therefore, as prokaryotes, not comparable to the eukaryotic organisms (green algae, etc.) that are commonly referred to as “algae”." So cyanobacteria do photosynthesize but are NOT algae. That means they contain endosymbiotic organelles such as chloroplasts, BUT these organelles are NOT part of the genetic material determined by the nucleus of the bacteria during cytosis. Organelles of endosymbiotic properties can instead indepedently duplicate themselves within the cell. Thus, when cytosis of the bacteria sets in, the organelles are distributed to each of the parting individual bacteria cells - unless the cytosis is blocked...
WAIT A MINUTE... cyanobacteria DO NOT HAVE A REAL CELL NULEUS and are therefore, as PROKARYOTES, NOT COMPARABLE to the EUCARYOTE organisms (green algae, etc.) that are commonly referred to as “algae”. Duh. I get it now, BUT if these bacteria have NO REAL NUCLEUS, it is no wonder they can not be described as EUCARYOTES - even if they do have endosymbiotic organelles... How confusing...! Hmm... but I guess that although Chloroplasts can duplicate themselves but probably have no nucleus either, they are perhaps not even potentially procaryotic...
(Written on Monday, the 6th of November 2023, using a quote from Wikipedia.)
Aha - photosynthesis is a process in Chloroplasts, which are in turn one sort of Plastid. "Plastids are a group of essential, heterogenous semi-autonomous organelles". (Wikipedia)
I would never have guessed that molybdenum deposits would have anything to do with an oxidation event. I have collected at a half dozen locations in the northeast for molybdenite, and the associated minerals differ. I think most of the New England red beds are Triassic. I'm not sure about the red jasper and quartzite.
Great video, and it seems to me that your assessment of Oxygen liberating more energy is precisely correct for allowing life's complexity.
Amazing content with all the references thanks
I'm curious about the magnitude of the role of mitochondria in this process.
Great question! At the time of the great oxidation event, eukaryotes (and thus, mitochondria) likely didn't exist. It is thought that eukayotes evolved around 2 billion years ago, and this GOE even occurred around 2.4 billion years ago. So technically mitochondria did not play any role. However, the microbes that would later evolve into mitochondria may have. However, it was mainly cyanobacteria that played the largest role since they photosynthesized. So if we think in terms of organelles, cyanobacteria later became chloroplasts in photosynthetic eukaryotic cells, so chloroplasts (or at least their 'ancestors') played a larger role than the 'ancestors' of mitochondria ;)
Wow! From the beginning It was like you were driving an Audi R8, full throttle, while I was trying to catch up in a Vintage Ford Model T … There was so much information, that I know I’ll have to view it again. I somewhat knew about the GOE, but it’s like comparing a pamphlet to an encyclopedia. I’m always amazed at your vast amount of knowledge :)
Right? Sometimes I gotta go lick my wounds and watch 'History of the Earth' for the good science feels after Geo Girl just overloaded by brain.
That's the beauty of video, you can watch it again and again until you get it.
Is there a direct correlation between the Great oxidation event and the timing of "snowball Earth" glaciation?
I would have to do some research on that, to know for sure, but the timing definitely suggests so! To my current understanding I think it is because as soon as photosynthesizing cyanobacteria came about, they took so much CO2 out of the atmosphere that Earth cooled and went into an 'ice-house' climate which caused the beginning of the snowball earth event. However, I will look further into it and maybe I'll make another video on the relation between the two.
@@GEOGIRL I believe it was more the rapid removal of methane (potent greenhouse gas) through oxidation than removal of co2 effect. Methane was by product of earlier life.
Banded iron formations also could have partially formed due to direct oxidation by anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria, which use Fe as electron donor thus oxidising Fe2 to Fe3. This type of photosynthesis have been discovered relatively recently, but it could have been common before the GOE, when Fe2 was still present in huge amounts
Thank you for the video! Very well made! I was completely confused about the Canfield ocean, but your explanation finally solved my confusion xD
I am so glad I could help and glad that you enjoyed this video! Thanks for the support! :)
Very very informative
Hey Geo Girl! I love your take on all this and you are so right. I've been fascinated with this line of geology for most of my 72 years. I live in Australia where, in Western Australia, you will find the perfect confirmation of what you are speaking about. It's called the Pilbara.
Omg yes Pilbara! I am so jealous that you live there! I have wanted to visit ever since I learned about this! Hopefully someday ;D
Watching Geo Girl is always a Great Educational Event! 🎉😊
Awesome! Very concise, informative, and easy to understand. Thank you!!
Thanks! So glad you found it informative :)
You are a joy to listen to and learn from.
Thank you so much! That is so kind :D
Great presentation Geo Girl! Thanks.
Very fascinating time in Earth's evolution and the progression of life
My favorite lesson!
Mine too!
I am glad I found your channel. Geology, and the related have always interested me. It is going to be fun to see what you say down the road! 😃
Great vid! (Looking forward to checking all your other stuff now) Another reason why higher O2 levels caused the Cambrian Explosion was that it made predation by active predators possible (,as chasing food takes a lot of respiration). Prey had to rapidly and continuously evolve to survive, beginning the predator-prey arms race that still exists today.
Thank you so much for the video! Really helped clarifying a lot of concepts.
Thanks! So glad to hear that :)
You should mention that "reduced iron" is not elemental iron, but rather soluble Ferrous iron which is oxidized to insoluble Ferric iron.
Hello wiz bang marvel! Apologies if you covered this elsewhere, but is there agreement about how and why photosynthesis emerged? Also, if I may, what is the physics and biochemical basis of evolutions supreme adaptive plasticity which my humble self considers the greatest marvel the universe has realized! I think the benighted physics community doesn't allow the fact of this marvel to penitrate, preoccupied as they are by mere black holes.
Oh what a great question, I actually have a whole video about the evolution of photosynthesis: th-cam.com/video/x5wVW3OGg7c/w-d-xo.html
But the short answer is yes and no, we have some good ideas, but I don't think we will ever be certain of exactly how it arose. In terms of 'why' we know that it was due to random mutations that just so happened to allow the production of pigment in early organisms that eventually evolved to use that pigment to absorb light and eventually convert that absorbed light into chemical energy, but again, there is no reason 'why' these mutations happen since they are random, but the reason why these mutations were successful (got passed down and diversified) is because photosynthesis was very advantageous for these early organisms especially in nutrient depleted environments.
Hope that helps :D
@19:11 Is there any known correlation between levels of Oxygen and how it effects DNA and the rates at which DNA can change? Is there any correlation as DNA becomes more complex that it can then become even more complex. The analogy in my head is a CPU processor. A Current AMd ryzen 7 processor now has 8 cores. All Cpus once had one core with much larger individual transistors. Once there is a certain level of DNA can it produce more information and thus create more genetic variety? As a cpus computing power increased the more powerful CPUS could then be used to make even more powerful cpus exponentially although of course the cpus are not doing it on their own like DNA.
I enjoyed listening to your video. Which paper did you take the temporal d13C plot (c.10 minutes) from?
Red is not the oxidized iron in the BIFs. The red is chert and the gray is hematite.
Um excuse me but you are wrong. The oxidized iron is red and the chert is gray
Actually Aiden King is correct! It is actually Fe stained chert and the hematite is the gray, I mixed up the layers on the labels, my bad!!
We know rusting of iron cause red color in surface.How you know that rock get oxidised at that particular time? (5:25)
Regarding the red beds, we can tell that the red coating is in situ, or early diagenetic, alteration. One way we can tell is because the iron oxide surface coating on red beds is not just on the surface of the rock, but actually coats the surface of each individual grain that makes up the rock. This represents a diagenetic phenomenon that was occurring during burial rather than after. Regarding the BIFs, these are not surface altered, they are the direct precipitation of oxidized iron minerals that we can radiometrically date. Hope that answers your question! :)
@@GEOGIRL thanku
all correct (for what we know), but you don't seem to comment on snowball earth that was coeval and possibly instrumental to the goe. very nice anyway
Yea, I made a separate video on snowball earth events (th-cam.com/video/MzYy9bEZnbw/w-d-xo.html), including the one coinciding with the GOE, but looking back you're right I should've at least mentioned that that was going on as well during this time :)
Thank you GOE Girl eh I mean GEO Girl 😏
Very nice work! I learned a lot, thank you very much, great video. I live in Venezuela, I use to travel to the area called “La Gran Sabana” in the Canaima National Park, there are the famous geological formations of the Tepuis, large table mountains with some rock layers markedly red and green, I suspect that is reminiscent of the GOE ? What do you think? I keep in my house some olive green rocks and other red ones that are a sample of what there is abundant there, however there is very little information on that subject, at least here in Venezuela. Thank you in advance for any information that you can give.
That's awesome, but I am not sure those are BIFs from the GOE, I think the Gran Sabana rocks might be too young (~1.8-1.4 billion years old) to be formed during the GOE event. However, the red layers are likely still due to oxidized iron content. I am just not sure about the green. Unfortunately, I cannot find too much about the geology of this area either. But if you want to look more on your own, I would suggest you use the search terms, "the Precambrian Roraima Groups" or "Guayana Shield". Hope this helps at least a little :)
@@GEOGIRL thank you very much. Keep posting your videos, are really good.
I think you should think about how oxygen was toxic to simple cells, cells cloned and inherited the oxygen deformation, the bacteria of the ocean, the hydrothermal bacteria beneath the sub surface, how those two finally got reconnected environmentally, and finally what happened when one "ate" the other, but some of the others survived inside and how cells eventually had to change from cloning and become sexual to share half cells to make a healthy baby cell with out inheritance of oxygen damage and how that made it possible for cellular growth
So the GOE increased oxygen levels to around 2%, NOE increased it to around 10-15% and the POE increased it to present day 20-21%?
Great content thank you !
Geo girl, i am a big fan of yours. Have you ever heard of Seven Days of Science with Ben Thomas? They are great guys.. I love to watch you wonderful young scientists.
I know of Ben Thomas but haven't heard of the seven days of science, I'll have to look into it! :D
I would totally watch an hour long episode on the GOE...just saying... =)
Oooo, good to know ;) Maybe someday I will make one!
Nice lecture...
Thank you! :)
Would it be correct to assume that through photosynthesis co2 and h2o were converted into sugar and o2.
So the same photosynthesis will offset global warming, just like with the increase in large oxygen breathing animals that thrived following the goe, photosynthetic plants and fawna will begin to thrive on an increased amount of co2 in the atmosphere.
Plants need carbon in order to produce sugar, they outnumber humans by a very large margin, even if measured by mass.
It has been proven in greenhouses that adding co2 into them increases plant growth and fruit and vegetable production is increased.
Why then are we fighting against it being in the atmosphere?
Great question! Yea so, we aren’t fighting against it being in the atmosphere, we are fighting against it increasing too much in the atmosphere *too fast*. Because we are releasing it into the the atmosphere too fast (faster than any other point in earth’s history), plants and other photosynthesizing organisms can’t keep up, especially with humans taking away natural environments as well.
Additionally, there were many times in earth’s history that global warming caused by co2 increased led to thriving plant life; however, we humans would have gone extinct in those conditions, and we would prefer that not to happen this time.
Another thing to keep in mind is if we plant a bunch of trees to fight global warming, it would take longer to help then you might think because all photosynthesizing organisms only take up carbon and release oxygen *during the day* when the sun light hits them. At night, they actually *release carbon*. They do take up more than they release (which is what goes into their biomass which is why they grow), but it is not enough to work *fast*, especially at the rate that co2 is increasing in the atmosphere.
So I guess all in all, we gotta keep in mind that conditions favorable for photosynthesizers may not be so favorable for humans. Humans need a very specific climate to live, so we need to find that delicate balance (not too little co2, and not too much, too fast).
Hope that helps! Thanks for the interest! :)
Because it changes the climate, plants are specialized to their climates. They're not going to get extra growth if the land has turned to desert under their feet, or flooded out, or the cold that used to keep a beetle away is no longer keeping it away, so hundreds of miles of trees in the midwest are now dead etc. If plants are your answer, you are going to need to be planting tens of billions of tons of them per year.
That was awesome! Thank you! I never thought to thank the bacteria that started us all off, right?
Thanks! And yes! I agree, we often take it all for granted, but we really should thank those little guys even if they will not understand us hahaha
@@GEOGIRL Have you ever considered gratitude to be a state of matter all to itself?
Not sure single celled organisms would understand that or could, but who knows.
Though I do know we are nothing without bacteria, and I would guess our body and cells appreciate when our mind gets into a thankful state, probably about the best we can do!
It sure is wild that bacteria both helped us, and our survival has depended on keeping us going.
Now this has me wanting to know more about bacteria, to see which are related, like the ones in our stomachs! lol Thanks!
@@colubrinedeucecreative Great points! And they aren't just in our stomachs as separate, beneficial organisms to us, but they are also within our own cells! I don't know if you saw my Life Origin's video, but in that one I talk about how all of the organelles (components) within eukaryotes (animal cells, like our own) were once bacterial cells that bigger cells ate and eventually used for certain functions inventing a new, multi-functional cell. For example, plants have chloroplasts that were originally individual cyanobacteria. And we have mitochondria that were originally a different bacterial species! I don't know about you, but I just love that fact, that our cells contain what used to be other individuals that now have evolved to work as a team, it's so incredible to me :D
@@GEOGIRL Oh wow! Yeah, no I hadn't I had meant to, will be sure to, just so fascinating!
Yes, oxygen respiration was more efficient . . . But critters needed to evolve with a circulation system before they could get bigger and more complex . . .
Not only did molecular oxygen's greater release of energy enable more complex life forms, it required more complex life forms and processes to protect against oxygen's oxidative/corrosive property.
Interesting that continental deposits of komatiite stopped right around the start of the GOE.
Just caught up with this channel - far, far to late. I an going to mention a very important point: all organisms require a source of reducing power - in the form of protons or electrons. Early photosynthetic organisms such as the ancestors of green sulfur bacteria used hydrogen sulfide as the source of reducing power. As long as there was plenty of hydrogen sulfide around this was fine since, given the redox potential of H2S/S is pretty low ( -230 mV) so a single quantum of light is sufficient to split H2S and generate NADPH which can be used to form reducing power for further reactions. From an evolutionary point of view this is fine and will (probably) out-compete other photosynthetic processes - that is as long as there is a supply of H2S.
There is one material that was ( and is ) vastly more common than sulfide and this is, of course, water. The problem is that water is very, very much more difficult to split with a redox potential of +820mV and requires 4 quantum of light ( in PS2). This requires a still poorly understood set of redox reactions using the multiple oxidation states of manganese ( the full details are still not known with certainty) in what is known as the Kok Cycle in the Oxygen Evolving Complex. To be honest as a biochemist I struggle with transition metal complexes such a Mn !
One other thing to mention: oxygen is a very, very strange molecule. It is a rare example of a stable diradical since it has two unpaired electrons ( note: I am of course talking about triplet oxygen). It reacts readily with materials that also have free electrons ( e.g. iron II - ferrous in old money) but very poorly with molecules that don't - like most organics.
I think that will do ;)
How do we know it's cyanobacteria tho?
How do we know it weren't halobacteria or some extinct type of photosynthesizing bacteria or archaea?
Any info in here regarding lichen / fungi?
Nope, not this video, but I have many other videos that reference lichen and fungi and their impact on geology, climate, and earth history :)
In my microbial weathering video: th-cam.com/video/V6nWMzYxsUM/w-d-xo.html
In my Life to Land video: th-cam.com/video/Kv-SD__ea3A/w-d-xo.html
A little bit in my cell wall/biosorption video: th-cam.com/video/FdhmxDMgGQQ/w-d-xo.html
And others I am sure I am forgetting. Although, I would love to do more on fungi, so if you have any ideas or references that would be helpful, please let me know! Thanks :D
Can you share source or reference of this information 🙂
Yep! All my references are listed in the video description, let me know if you have trouble finding it or if you have any questions about the references themselves ;)
Two tiny pointless observations. 1. Thank you for using the worm crawl word animation at the beginning of a video. 2. Thank you for not using it all the time. (A little goes a long way.) Thanks for the content. :-)
So what caused the later oxygenation event?
SO many things came together to cause that event! Here's my video over that event: th-cam.com/video/vcCkU2qtBQU/w-d-xo.html (it was mostly due to weathering from the Rodinia supercontinent breaking up, tectonic subduction and insulation at the time, soil formation which exacerbated weathering, and certain animal species that had just evolved) ;)
@@GEOGIRL Got it, thanks! I just found your videos a few days ago and they're very informative.
@@GeoffCanyon Thanks! So glad you enjoy them :)
Thank you
can you make a video of bif and gold formation?
Great lecture, but I'm also happy that you improved a lot and do not speed anymore as if you're trying to catch a bus 🚌🏃♀️ 😅
Hahaha thanks! Me too ;D
Thank you so much !
You're welcome so much! ;D
"This photosynthesis stuff is amazing. What could possibly go wrong?" Some Green Germ 25,000,000,000 BC 😋
Love it 😍
From nepal
Yay, I am happy to hear that, this is one of my fav videos on my channel :)
was it not enough oxygen for at least sea life forms to grow right after this event ?
as deep ocean drops in oxygen it should exclude large animals using oxygen
if the theory of gradual oxygen increase is correct
If I understand what you’re asking, it depends on your definition of ‘life’. Yes there was life in the ocean before the GOE and there was new life that evolved right after the GOE (we see the first appearance of eukaryotes in the fossil record around this time), but this life remained single celled until much later (just before the Cambrian) in which more complex multicellular life could evolve due to a multitude of factors but among these factors was an extra jump in oxygen content. So life that we can see with our own eyes wasn’t necessarily around (other than in microbial mats) until about 600 million years ago. Hope this makes since :)
@@GEOGIRL hi, no i meant that if today there are animals far deep in the ocean,
at that depth they would get oxygen restricted due to compression and out gassing, and be equal to an ocean with less oxygen at shallow depth as far as breathing goes.
so was there any big sea animals prior to cambrian that falsify the theory that oxygen came in steps because large animals in the sea could breath prior to the 2nd oxygen increase ?/ the theory predict large sea animals couldnt exist prior to another oxygen injection,
but if large animals today can make it in deep ocean, why cant large animals back then had make it in shallow water
@@jansegal6687 Ah I think I see what you are saying now. Well the first complex multicellular life needed the oxygen to evolve, but that doesn't mean that after that threshold was met (life becoming complex or large) that that life couldn't evolve to go back to the depths of the ocean where oxygen is depleted. Once large life evolved, it was free to diversify and some lineages evolved to survive in oxygen depleted areas with advanced respiration pathways in order to take up enough oxygen. However, I believe the type of life you are talking about that live in the 'deep' ocean today (like sea jelly-type life and bioluminescent deep ocean animals), these organisms appear to be occupying water so deep that it wouldn't have much oxygen, but in fact it does. Just because there is no sunlight, does not mean there is no oxygen at those depths. In fact, bioluminescence is a phenomenon that can only occur in the presence of appreciable oxygen, so the oxygen content of the deep sea today is still much more than even shallow depths before the Cambrian. An additional reason that life had a hard time with biodiversification during the Precambrian is that for complex shallow marine organisms to evolve, they needed available sea floor 'space' which, before the Cambrian, was completely covered in single-celled algal and bacterial mats until a specialized type of mollusk evolved to graze on these mats and cleared the way for life to diversify on the shallow sea floor (see the 'cropping hypothesis' in my Life's Origins video). If you read about the first complex life in the shallow sea, most of this life needed substrates to attach to, life that swam evolved much later from these substrate-attached species, this is why the cropping hypothesis is important. Additional reasons for why large complex life couldn't evolve until the Ediacaran/Cambrian periods are listed in that Life's Origins video as well. But I want to stress that not everything is figured out, what your saying/hypothesizing is extremely interesting and I hope that continued research on this topic teaches us more about the life that was around before the Cambrian. There is so much more to discover, it is so exciting! Hope this helps a little.
@@GEOGIRL thanks girl, yes that helped a lot, happy i found you. i cant quite make out when the 2nd oxygen occurred, can you specify date ?
and also specify date of the two snowball earth periods before cambrian and reason around context of these events ?
i can not find 'cropping hypothesis
@@jansegal6687 Yea, I am going to eventually do more videos on other oxidation and anoxia (de-oxygenation) events throughout earth's history, and in those I will specify the timing of the subsequent events. I believe the major, well-known snowball earth event was around ~700 million years ago, but I can definitely look further into these ice house events and make videos about them in the future as well. Regarding the cropping hypothesis, see my 'life origins' video (near the end) or just look in the top reference I list in the description for that video.
I love it when you said "I'm gonn'answer fer y'all". 😻
thank youu!! I subscribed lol.
Thanks so much for the support! I am glad you enjoy my content :)
great video
Can u tell me which college is best for M.sc geology
Just like in Back to the Future, Bif was miffed.
There is strong evidence that is was a significantly (in a geological timeframe) changing geological environment that essentially allowed the gradual build-up of oxygen in the atmosphere, not one of geological sinks being slowly "filled-up" in the presence of oxygen and the corresponding spike being one of oxygen "running out" or reactive materials in a linear fashion.
Essentially, oxygen production had been going on long before the GOE, but a changing geological environment strongly reduced the ability for the oxygen to be "sunk", leading to a net gain in oxygen and most likely a positive feedback loop for oxygen producing bacteria. This video is quite illustrative:
- th-cam.com/video/0Py5HIFjdbg/w-d-xo.html
Wow thanks for sharing the video! I love Dr. Anbar, I actually used some of his papers in the making of this and other videos on my channel :) Because of the time frame I try to fit my videos into, I wasn't able to discuss every possible reason for the GOE and its timing, but I agree completely that global geological shifts were occurring that, together with chemical shifts, caused the GOE. Actually, I spent a little more time discussing the possibility of geological/tectonic contribution to the Neoproterozoic oxidation event (NOE) in my video over the NOE if you want to check it out: th-cam.com/video/vcCkU2qtBQU/w-d-xo.html
But in general, I completely agree that oxygen producing organisms had been around long before the GOE and the gradual shifts in chemical and geological sinks finally gave way for the build up of molecular O2. :) Although, it is such a cool and evolving topic, I can't wait to see what else comes of GOE research in the near future! :D
You mean when earth started to breath
Yah gurl
Yah!
@@GEOGIRL you do a good job I like your passion it shows
@@chrisciaravino5866 Thanks so much! My goal is to share that passion, so it feels really good to hear that it shows :)
The devil was the prince of air right ?
so it should be called oxygenation event : oxidation is a chemical reaction
Haha yea it is crazy how many names the GOE actually has! The great oxygenation event is one of its other names. But either way works because the oxygenation of the atmosphere and oceans led to the oxidation of all the reduced compounds on earth :)
I'm in love.
Smart and hot.
🥰🥰🥰
Stop trying to make BIF happen 😉
Hahaha I WILL DO IT!
Gosh you’re so darn cute 🥰
It seems that this young woman has too much time on her hands. Her videos appear just to be regurgitating some freshman geology text book. Oh well.
That is what I am doing; many people unfortunately do not have access to text book information so I am trying my best to make it accessible and understandable. I have come a long way from this video, but I can assure you I do not have ‘too much time’ ;) I am actually a PhD student in geoscience. I post on TH-cam in the little free time that I have because it is the only way that I feel I can make a real impact as a scientist. I hope that makes sense :)
@@GEOGIRL The person who posted this doesn't acknowledge the skill it takes to condense textbooks and research into a lecture, something you have grown to be very good at it. Your presentation skills have developed greatly since this early video. Your current videos are a lot easier to follow for a laymen like me. Nowadays, you would have taken a moment to explain fractionation. Lastly, your impact as a scientist has only just begun. TH-cam has already led to greater opportunities. Your reach is limited only by your energy and enthusiasm, and you have plenty of both. Thank you for making a difference to many young scientists.
I really appreciate your efforts. My daughter has a ph.D in hydrogeology and without these basics, I can’t begin to engage with her! My degrees were in nursing and writing. I can follow the chemistry; the geophysics astonish me. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around “deep geologic time.”
@daveanderson718-if you’re looking for upper level geology, You-Tube is hardly the appropriate place, Big Shot.