Redox Revolutions on Earth and Beyond
When
Where
Dr. Ariel Anbar
President's Professor
School of Earth & Space Exploration
School of Molecular Sciences
Arizona State University
The molecule O2 looms large in the search for life on extrasolar planets, because Earth’s O2-rich atmosphere is a consequence of biology. However, it is likely that O2 was being produced on Earth long before it accumulated in the atmosphere. It’s rise was likely delayed by interactions between the atmosphere and the solid planet. If so, the secular evolution of the solid Earth played a key role in modulating the oxygenation of Earth’s surface environment. This emerging understanding of Earth’s redox revolution raises important questions about the likelihood of similar revolutions on other worlds, and highlights the need for far better understanding of solid Earth processes - and how these processes might operate on other nominally “Earth-like” worlds - as a key part of the evolving exoplanetary research enterprise.
Host: Dr. Jack Holt