National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: Nickel "Famine" Led to Oxygen-Breathing Life?


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Banded iron formations (bottom) found in Ontario, Canada, show that the amount of nickel dissolved in seawater dropped about 2.5 billion years ago, according to an April 2009 study.

The find may help explain why methane-producing bacteria declined, allowing life that depends on oxygen to eventually dominate Earth.

Photographs courtesy Stefan Lalonde