The Great Oxidation Event: An Expert Discussion on the Causes, the Processes, and the Still Unknowns

Dr. Lee Kump (LK): What is really interesting about the history of atmospheric oxygenation is that there is this event or interval of change from an anoxic Archean atmosphere to an oxygenated post-Archean atmosphere (Holland, 1994). When we think about the causes of the rise of oxygen and we think about the Great Oxidation Event, it is really a fundamental change in the way the Earth system functioned. It is a new state; it is the oxygenated state that is distinct from the anoxic state, and it is nonreversible.