Oxygen

A Four Billion Year History

Donald E. Canfield

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN:
  9780691270562
• eBook ISBN:
  9780691270579
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology

The remarkable scientific story of how Earth became an oxygenated planet

The air we breathe is twenty-one percent oxygen, an amount higher than on any other known world. While we may take our air for granted, Earth was not always an oxygenated planet. How did it come to be this way? Donald Canfield covers this vast history, emphasizing its relationship to the evolution of life and the evolving chemistry of Earth. He guides readers through the various lines of scientific evidence, considers some of the wrong turns and dead ends along the way, and highlights the scientists and researchers who have made key discoveries in the field. Now with an incisive new preface by the author, Oxygen takes readers on an astonishing journey of discovery, telling the story of how our planet became oxygenated.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• More praise for Oxygen
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Preface to the Princeton Science Library Edition
• Preface
• Chapter 1. What Is It about Planet Earth?
• Chapter 2. Life before Oxygen
• Chapter 3. Evolution of Oxygenic Photosynthesis
• Chapter 4. Cyanobacteria: The Great Liberators
• Chapter 5. What Controls Atmospheric Oxygen Concentrations?
• Chapter 6. The Early History of Atmospheric Oxygen: Biological Evidence
• Chapter 7. The Early History of Atmospheric Oxygen: Geological Evidence
• Chapter 8. The Great Oxidation
• Color Plates
• Chapter 9. Earth’s Middle Ages: What Came after the GOE
• Chapter 10. Neoproterozoic Oxygen and the Rise of Animals
• Chapter 11. Phanerozoic Oxygen
• Chapter 12. Epilogue
• Notes
• References
• Index