A revised sedimentary pyrite proxy for atmospheric oxygen in the Paleozoic: Evaluation for the Silurian-Devonian-Carboniferous period and the relationship of the results to the observed biosphere record

Cannell, Alan; Blamey, Nigel; Brand, Uwe; Escapa, Ignacio H.; Large, Ross R.

doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2022.104062

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 95 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Limited experiments at varying pressures indicate that the pO2 minimum for fire is a function of the product of pO2 and Patm 97,98 , such that these low values would be sufficient for the wildfire propagation seen in the record. These low values are also seen in air trapped in Eocene halite and derived from a revised pyrite proxy suggesting that this could have been a period of higher air density 99 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 76%

Palaeoatmosphere facilitates a gliding transition to powered flight in Eocene bats

Cannell¹,

Amador

Simmons

et al. 2023

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Bats are the only flying mammals but their transition to flight remains poorly understood and controversial. We applied aerodynamic modeling to reconstruct flight in the oldest complete fossil bat, the archaic Onychonycteris finneyi from the early Eocene of North America, under paleo-atmospheric conditions. Results indicate that Onychonycteris was capable of both gliding and powered flight either in a standard normodense aerial medium or in a hyperdense atmosphere estimated for the Eocene from two independent paleogeochemical proxies. Aerodynamic continuity across a morphological gradient is demonstrated by modeled intermediate forms with increasing aspect ratio (AR) produced by gradual digital elongation, such as indicated by chiropteran developmental data. Here a performance gradient emerged of decreasing sink rate with increasing AR that eventually allowed available muscle power to achieve level flight using flapping, a process greatly facilitated under elevated atmospheric densities. This gradient strongly supports a gliding (trees-down) transition to powered flight in bats.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 76%

Palaeoatmosphere facilitates a gliding transition to powered flight in Eocene bats

Cannell¹,

Amador

Simmons

et al. 2023

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…One possible reason is that air pressure and density might not be constant over time and very long-term changes over tens of millions of years are mirrored in these tolerances. used isotope mass balance models (Royer et al, 2014); the evidence of wildfires in the geological record (Glasspool et al, 2015); the relation of carbon isotopes in plant resins (Tappert et al, 2013); the redox characteristics of framboidal pyrites (Cannell et al, 2022;Large et al, 2019); direct measurements of oxygen in halite (Brand et al, 2021); and the respiration constraints of large dragonfly insects bauplan (Cannell & Nel, 2023).…”

Section: The Possible Adaption Of the Human Respiratory System To Pas...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Muscle power, takeoff airspeeds, thermoregulation and respiration can be modelled suggesting that the giant volant insects of the Permian required ∼2 bar to function (Cannell & Nel, 2023); the Miocene giant birds probably flew in air at 1.3 bar (Cannell, 2020) and bats evolved at 1.6 bar (Giannini et al, 2024). Again, the 'hexapod gap' , around 380-320 Mya, a period in which there is a paucity of winged insect fossils (Schachat et al, 2018), suggests a low-density atmosphere in which gliding and subsequent flapping flight could not efficiently develop (Cannell et al, 2022).…”

Section: The Possible Adaption Of the Human Respiratory System To Pas...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The possible adaption of the human respiratory system to past atmospheres

Cannell

2024

Experimental Physiology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…They derived a proxy for atmospheric oxygen by dividing Se concentration by Co concentration, and scaling this at points in the Neoproterozoic and Phanerozoic to atmospheric O2 reconstructions from other methods. A recent revision of this parameterisation instead uses a power law to relate Se and Co concentrations to atmospheric O2 (Cannell et al, 2022). Figure 3b shows the best guess curve of Large et al ( 2019) for the Phanerozoic.…”

Section: Selenium To Cobalt Ratios In Pyrite Grainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The revised formulation is not plotted as it has only been produced for the Paleozoic, but it too falls below the wildfire minimum (Cannell et al, 2022). Sulfide weathering has a weakening dependence on oxygen concentration when oxygen levels are high, and may be more dependent on erosion rates (Daines et al, 2017) and the action of the biosphere (Kanzaki and Kump, 2018).…”

Section: Selenium To Cobalt Ratios In Pyrite Grainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of Atmospheric O2 Through the Phanerozoic, Revisited

Mills

Krause

Jarvis

et al. 2023

Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An oxygen-rich atmosphere is essential for complex animals. The early Earth had an anoxic atmosphere, and understanding the rise and maintenance of high O2 levels is critical for investigating what drove our own evolution and for assessing the likely habitability of exoplanets. A growing number of techniques aim to reproduce changes in O2 levels over the Phanerozoic Eon (the past 539 million years). We assess these methods and attempt to draw the reliable techniques together to form a consensus Phanerozoic O2 curve. We conclude that O2 probably made up around 5–10% of the atmosphere during the Cambrian and rose in pulses to ∼15–20% in the Devonian, reaching a further peak of greater than 25% in the Permo-Carboniferous before declining toward the present day. Evolutionary radiations in the Cambrian and Ordovician appear consistent with an oxygen driver, and the Devonian “Age of the Fishes” coincides with oxygen rising above 15% atm. ▪ An oxygen-rich atmosphere is essential for complex animals such as humans. ▪ We review the methods for reconstructing past variation in oxygen levels over the past 539 million years (the Phanerozoic Eon). ▪ We produce a consensus plot of the most likely evolution of atmospheric oxygen levels. ▪ Evolutionary radiations in the Cambrian, Ordovician, and Devonian periods may be linked to rises in oxygen concentration. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Volume 51 is May 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

show abstract

A revised sedimentary pyrite proxy for atmospheric oxygen in the Paleozoic: Evaluation for the Silurian-Devonian-Carboniferous period and the relationship of the results to the observed biosphere record

Cited by 9 publications

References 95 publications

Palaeoatmosphere facilitates a gliding transition to powered flight in Eocene bats

Palaeoatmosphere facilitates a gliding transition to powered flight in Eocene bats

The possible adaption of the human respiratory system to past atmospheres

Evolution of Atmospheric O2 Through the Phanerozoic, Revisited

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About