Oxygen and hydrogen in the primitive atmosphere
Abstract
It is argued that the concentration of oxygen in the prebiological terrestrial atmosphere was negligible, despite the photolysis of water vapor. Photolysis alone cannot supply a source of oxygen for the atmosphere, since recombination follows rapidly. Furthermore, hydrogen and other reduced gases from volcanoes are apt to have kept oxygen mixing ratios at very low levels; this hydrogen dominance would be especially likely for a tectonically young planet. The decline of volcanic sources of hydrogen and the input of oxygen from biological sources would eventually have shifted the hydrogen-oxygen balance and the oxidation state of the atmosphere.
- Publication:
-
Pure and Applied Geophysics
- Pub Date:
- 1978
- DOI:
- 10.1007/BF01636879
- Bibcode:
- 1978PApGe.116..222W
- Keywords:
-
- Atmospheric Chemistry;
- Photolysis;
- Photosynthesis;
- Primitive Earth Atmosphere;
- Atmospheric Composition;
- Hydrogen;
- Oxygen;
- Recombination Reactions;
- Water Vapor