Oxygen: A Four Billion Year History (Science Essentials)

This book kept me up at night. I could not put it down. I kept turning the pages as though it were a novel.What kept me engrossed, I think, were the questions. Why is life so phenomenally abundant on this planet? When did it get that way? How could we possibly know?These are hard questions, and Canfield does not duck them. He seems to have a rare gift for making the complex simple. The only chemistry class I ever took was in high school, and yet I found myself following the path of electrons through photosynthesis. I learned that life on our planet is abundant because it runs on the flow of electrons from a very common molecule: water. I learned how the history of life is reflected in the isotope chemistry of sedimentary rocks.Not that any of this is easy. Canfield does not talk down to his readers or sidestep difficulties. But for readers who enjoy science, this book is immensely rewarding.I may start it again from the beginning.

When people think of oxygen, if they think of it at all, it is that it is produced by plants and is necessary for most life on earth. There really is never any thought to how the concentration of oxygen stays at about 21% (at sea level) or where oxygen comes from. It's just there, and nothing I ever had in biology gave any other answers…it was always the "respiration loop" of carbon dioxide being absorbed by trees and oxygen produced which is then breathed in by animals which creates carbon dioxide and around we go. So, it was a surprise to discover there was so much more to the oxygen story and that oxygen wasn't even present on the planet when it first began.The writer writes well for a scientist, which is no small feat, however this book is not really for the everyday reader. I was a biology major in college (oh so many years ago) and had the mandatory amount of chemistry, but absolutely no geology. And, to fully appreciate the story the author is telling, you need a working knowledge of both of these subjects. The writing was clear…it was the subject matter that made the reading extremely difficult.Even with the above caveat, I enjoyed the book. It took me a while and I had to reread a number of sections before I got it, but I eventually did get through it and found it to be fascinating. My warning is not to get this thinking it is a popular science book…it is real science and it can be very dense reading.

An interesting book which contained quite a few surprises for an old geologist/petroleum engineer. Graduated from U of MN in 1961. Worked in the petroleum industry until 2015. Was pleased to learn about Banded Iron Formations and Professor Preston Cloud who had come to the U of M sometime before I graduated. Dr. Canfield writes in an interesting and easy to follow prose. There are good graphs and diagrams to support the conclusions for much of the research by different scientists. He explains how much effort has been given by many dedicated scientists to understanding the very small amount of rock record from the early geological history of the earth. It was very interesting to learn how these scientists had found enough evidence in this limited rock record to better understand many of the mechanisms by which the amount of oxygen present in the oceans and atmosphere could be explained/measured/supported their theories. Dr. Canfield is careful to explain the wide range of values for oxygen from the data and interpretations and points out where further research was needed to better understand oxygen relative to the earhts history. The GOE(great oxyen event) was surprising and informative to me. It is much more complex and influenced by the development of live on earth, plate tectonics, sediment supply, sedimentation and even the settling rate fecal pellets in the deep ocean. I look forward now to going through the extensive notes for each chapter to improve my understanding of the history of oxygen on the earth as presented by Dr. Canfield. I commend him for giving full credit to the work of others and to those who motivated him to follow his goal of studying oxygen over the geologic history of the earth.

- like it or not this book gets technical, you should have some high school sience to get it - but you won't have to brush up on it either. For teachers, scientists or students this is the story of the origin and life on earth from a geochemists perspective, a wiew that can be stunning. Canfield is a leading figure in his field, and how refreshing it is to see those guys just say what they think outside the wrappings of academic language and provisions! The text is not completely unraveled from academic wrighting and the kindle formatting obscures my understanding. to me the book is at its best when you are given a little recess as Canfield wonders of topic, before he continues his sometimes difficult lecture. I did require more respites than he provided, but that's easy; it's a book. The lecture is well worth following!!

I found this book quite interesting. The main point I got out of it was the intimate relationships between the development and evolution of life on the planet and the geology and geochemistry. The way scientists have pieced together these relationships to explain the appearance of oxygen in our atmosphere through chemistry and biology was fascinating. Although many of the proposed mechanisms are still quite speculative and open to alternatives, they are based on extensive and varied scientific studies. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. For me it was a primer, and I will be doing follow up reading on a number of the provided references.

If you are interested in the science and origin of the Earth's atmosphere, this is a great book to read. It is detailed and follows the historical development of our planet from it's creation. The book is well written, and accurate to the limits of our current technology. The author does an excellent job also describing all the elements the make up the air, and how that has changed since our planet formed. I highly recommend this book for those readers who choose to understand the importance and the future of the air we breath.

a comprehensive overview of current research on the biogeochemistry of oxygen

The history of oxygen is more complicated than I expected. I liked the way the author tied together different evidence: physical (fossils where possible and ratios of isotopes where not) and the evolution of DNA. I liked how when there is a difference of opinion he gave us the range.

I enjoyed reading this book. I was quite surprised that scientists have been able to delve so far into the past, beyond the usual visible fossils to some 2.5 to 4 billion years ago when no structural evidence of fossils exists. The "chemical footprint" of early bacterial organisms shows up in isotopic shifts for elements such as carbon and sulfur, or in the absence of oxides of iron or manganese indicating anoxic conditions. Possible evolutionary pathways from preoxygenic photosynthesis to the first oxygenic photosynthesis as exhibited by the cyanobacteria are sketched briefly.It's quite fascinating how the chemical/isotopic fossil record points toward a reasonable estimate for when significant levels of oxygen appeared on the scene, referred to a a series of oxygen whiffs followed by the Great Oxidation Event. The subsequent history of atmospheric oxygen buildup, leading to more complex organisms starting to show up in the structural fossil record (Ediacaran fossils), followed later by very high atmospheric oxygen levels (estimated at around 35%) in the Paleozoic Era, resulting in the formation of the huge coal deposits we see today (natural carbon sequestration coupled with oxygen buildup).The estimated high oxygen levels of the Paleozoic Era serve to explain how giant insects could evolve (high O2 in air allows for adequate transfer and diffusion of O2 into the tissues - a capability that limits modern insects to the smaller size they have today.It's a fascinating journey into Earth's early past and explains a lot that I never realized.The author discusses his interactions with other scientists and how theories are put forward and tested. He also gives his account a personal touch, recounting his social contacts and cooperation with scientists around the world. Scientists form a very special community and great science comes with open-mindedness balanced with a healthy skepticism over new theories, even one's own. True science puts theories to the test of what we see in the evidence.The book tries to keep chemical and biochemical mechanisms to a very simplified minimum. I actually got a little confused because I would have liked to see the full equations for the chemical reactions so I could see how it all fits together. However, the author is writing to a broader public and obviously needs to popularize the account and not bog readers down with too many details of chemistry. Otherwise, the book would fail to reach a wider audience.It is amazing what scientists have learned about the early evolution of life on Earth. If you are interested in learning about this area of our knowledge of our planet, then I strongly recommend this book to you.