Claim: Earth’s spin is slowing down – because of oxygen
Ever since its formation around 4.5 billion years ago, the Earth’s rotation has been gradually slowing down, and its days have progressively become longer as a result.
While unnoticeable to humans, it is apparently enough to work significant changes to our environment. New research suggests that the lengthening of days can be linked to increased oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere.
Specifically, the blue-green algae called cyanobacteria that emerged and proliferated about 2.4 billion years ago may have been able to produce more oxygen because Earth’s days grew longer.
Microbiologist Gregory Dick, of the University of Michigan, said: “An enduring question in Earth sciences has been how did Earth’s atmosphere get its oxygen, and what factors controlled when this oxygenation took place.
“Our research suggests that the rate at which Earth is spinning – in other words, its day length – may have had an important effect on the pattern and timing of Earth’s oxygenation.”
The reason the Earth’s spin is slowing down is because the Moon exerts a gravitational pull on the planet, which causes a rotational deceleration.
Scientists know, based on the fossil record, that days were just 18 hours long 1.4 billion years ago, and half an hour shorter than they are today 70 million years ago.
Evidence suggests that we’re gaining 1.8 milliseconds a century.
The second component is something known as the Great Oxidation Event – when cyanobacteria emerged in such great quantities that Earth’s atmosphere experienced a sharp, significant rise in oxygen
Experts even theory that life as we know it may not have emerged without this event.
Their study, which was published yesterday in Nature Geoscience, proposes and puts to the test the theory that longer, continuous daylight kick-started weird bacteria into producing lots of oxygen, making most of life as we know it possible.
They dredged up the gooey bacteria from a deep sinkhole in Lake Huron in North America and tinkered with how much light it got in lab experiments.
The more continuous light the smelly microbes got, the more oxygen they produced.
Researchers believe there may have been similar competitions between communities of microbes billions of years ago, with oxygen-producing bacteria’s sunlight exposure hampered by their microbial neighbours.
They concluded that Earth’s slowing rotation, which gradually lengthened days from six hours to the current 24 hours, was key for the cyanobacteria in making the planet more breathable.
Study lead Judith Klatt added: “We realised that there is a fundamental link between light dynamics and release of oxygen and that link is grounded in the physics of molecular diffusion.
“A shorter day would allow less oxygen to escape a mat, even if the same amount of oxygen is produced per hour.”
See more here: msn.com
Header image: Getty Images
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sir_isO
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Hey.
“I once changed the style, they said hello I said goodbye”.
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sir_isO
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I like the part where God says “…total biological catastrophe…I would rather consider systematic annihilation…”
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Herb Rose
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I don’t know who wrote the headline for this article but if it was man.com I bet he has his pants on backwards.
The article says the Earth’s rotation slows because of the drag of the moon. It asserts that this slowing allowed plants to convert more CO2 to O2. This change of gases would have no effect on the rotation of the Earth.
I don’t see where the change of the length of the day would effect the light the plants receive. Instead of having 12 hours of light, 12 hours of darkness, twelve hours of light, twelve hours of darkness they would have eight hours of light, eight hours of darkness, eight hours of light, eight hours of darkness, eight hours of light, eight hours of darkness. What’s the difference between counting on an octal system and a duodecimal system?
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb and PSI Readers,
I must commend you for a comment that specifically points out an obvious fact of rational mathematics and is directly related to the article.
Originally, I had addressed my comment only to Herb; however his comment caused me to ponder what else might have been written that was so fundamentally offbase.
K. Kaiser alerted me to the fact that the article does not even state the atmosphere’s oxygen was produced from CO2 via photosynthesis. Which caused me to ask: What was the source of this carbon dioxide?
This is where it gets interesting for Robert Beatty, a mining engineer, has explained to me that the ‘gas pressure’ which produces a volcanic eruption is due to the high temperature of the Earth’s interior which thermally decomposes limestone (CaCO3) to carbon dioxide and CaO (lime). Which is the reason for Venus’s massive carbon dioxide atmosphere. For I have never read that the stars (suns) and the gaseous planets are principally composed of carbon dioxide.
So, I question: “What do the editor(s) and peer reviewers for ‘Nature Geoscience’ know about fundamental Geoscience?”
Conversations such as the article and Herb’s, K. Kaiser’s and now my comments are the PURPOSE of PSI’s existence.
Have a good day, Jerry
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sir_isO
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Btw, the earth was formed 39-40 years ago. And I enable it.
Don’t piss me off.
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sir_isO
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You should go watch Dark City to know what the Matrix is all about.
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Herb Rose
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Frank,
You should go back to the insane asylum and get help.
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val
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Pretty stupid conclusions. Perhaps they should access Suspicious Observers YT and find out the lastest actual information … rotation speeds have been varying + or – milliseconds for some time. It has everything to do with energies from space impacting the planet … and nothing to do with oxygen.
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val
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Suspicious0bservers: Serious Volcano Risk, Earth Rotation Glitches, Moon Magnetism | S0 News Aug.7.2021
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CAPITAL OFFENSE
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ALL THIS CHAOS GOES AWAY WHEN YOU COME TO THE REALIZATION THAT THE EARTH IS FIXED AND DOES NOT MOVE. IT IS NOT A GLOBE. REMEMBER WHAT SATAN’S GREATEST TRICK IS??? IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN SATAN THEN YOU ARE ALWAYS GOING TO BELIEVE YOU ARE ALL JUST A BUNCH OF DUMB MONKEYS HANGING ON TO A SPINNING GLOBE!!! (LMAO)
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LLOYD
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If not a globe. what is it? A cowpie? A buffalo chip?
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Howdy
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Flat-Earthers take the Bible literally, which is why they fail. Should have listened to Jesus…
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K Kaiser
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Though the start of oxygen evolution (from CO2 via photosynthesis) may have been much earlier than previously thought and may have evolved from cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), the great oxygenation event happened much later, starting around 700 million years ago and culminating ~300 million years ago. That’s when the lush forests grew, that over the time since turned to coal.
Just remember: All molecular oxygen ( in the atmosphere or in the water ) is a product derived from carbon dioxide ( CO2 )!
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Climate Heretic
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Earths rotation has always been slowing down, because of tidal forces between Earth and the moon. Approximately every 100 years, the day gets about 1.4 milliseconds longer.
The title is click bait, pure and simple. Oxygen does not slow the rotation of the Earth.
Regards
Climate Heretic
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Tom
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While this all may be interesting, it won’t matter because the changes are so slow and humans will not be around after the next 100 years. Gates will see to that.
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