Life on Earth underwent dramatic changes 540 million years ago. We have a new explanation why

We owe life on Earth as we know it to the planet’s magnetic field. It is this element that protects us from some of the radiation emanating from our star and solar winds. Winds that would cause water to disappear from our oceans, as happened on Mars.

But we might also owe life as we know it its weakening.

591 million years ago. The Cambrian explosion could have such a paradoxical origin. A weakening of Earth’s magnetic field around 591 million years ago may have played a major role in the rise in oxygen levels that occurred at the end of the Ediacaran period, according to new research.

Explosion of life. The Ediacaran period is the last of the Precambrian phases and precedes the era of significant expansion of life on Earth, the so-called “Cambrian explosion”. It is estimated that life on Earth began billions of years earlier, but it was during this period that it diversified.

It was during this period that complex life developed and the various taxonomic types into which we classify the animal species we know today began to differentiate from each other. This explosion is traditionally associated with an increase in oxygen levels on our planet.

Ineffective processes. Now the team responsible for the latest research has focused this event on the Earth’s magnetic field. They did this by analyzing field intensity throughout geological history.

Various studies have already shown that our planet’s magnetic field existed between 591 and 565 million years ago. The latter calculated that at the beginning of this interval the field was 30 times weaker than it is now. Also weaker than it was 2 billion years ago.

Additional hypotheses. This period of weakening magnetic field coincided with a period of rising oxygen levels on the planet, and researchers believe that this coincidence is fraught with cause and effect. That is, the weakening of the magnetic field led to an increase in oxygen levels, and this, in turn, caused an explosion of biodiversity on the planet.

How exactly? The team’s hypothesis is based on the possibility that magnetic winds could act on hydrogen ions in the atmosphere, dragging them along with them and thereby leaving room for oxygen molecules.

This possibility does not contradict the hitherto dominant hypothesis, but rather complements it. Until now, we believed that the work of cyanobacteria is responsible for this period of oxygenation. The team published details of their research in a journal. Connection Earth and environment.

From Earth to Mars. This discovery has an interesting parallel with Mars. As far as we know, the neighboring planet is a desert devoid of life. Mars had oceans of liquid water early in its existence, but it lost them, perhaps after losing its magnetic field (or most of it).

Who knows what could have happened if our planet’s magnetic field had not recovered from its “recession.” Perhaps the most interesting question would be what would happen to Mars if its protective field were reanimated.

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Image | PaleoEquii