Did phosphorus trigger complex evolution -- and blue skies?
Tuesday, 11 May 2010 03:19 | Written by Goldilocks Mission |
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(Carnegie Institution) The evolution of complex life forms may have gotten a jump start billions of years ago, when geologic events over millions of years caused large quantities of phosphorus to wash into the oceans. According to this model, proposed by Dominic Papineau of the Carnegie Institution for Science, the higher levels of phosphorus would have caused vast algal blooms, pumping extra oxygen into the environment which allowed larger, more complex types of organisms to thrive.
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