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Correlation Between the Great Oxidation Event and a Snowball Earth

Quote: “Both Snowball Earth periods had extreme impacts on the development of life. It helps us understand the evolution of Earth and Earth’s atmosphere, and evolution of life, for that matter.” -Kevin Chamberlain, a UW research professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics. Initial Claim: Professor Chamberlain’s extensive research about the rise of life’s correlation to a Snowball Earth shows evidence that the Great Oxidation Event occurred approximately 2.5bya. His research talks about when the Earth’s climate swung where the polar ice caps extended to the equator and the Earth was a complete snowball, and the atmosphere was separated from the hydrosphere. His paper then states that when the Snowball Earth melted and turned slush, Great Oxygenation Event occurred, giving way to aerobic life. Background: The first Snowball earth period occurred 2.3bya, where, at that time, the earth’s atmosphere was mostly made up of greenhouse gasses such as methane and carbon dioxid
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The Great Oxidation Event occurred as a result of cyanobacteria, pumping out unwanted oxygen, which in turn, transformed Earth's atmosphere. But while this explains how it the GOE happened, it doesn't explain why, and it doesn't really explain when it happened. The issue is that cyanobacteria seem to have been around long before the GOE.         "They're probably among the first organisms we have on this planet," says Bettina Schirrmeister of the University of Bristol in the UK. We can be confident that there were cyanobacteria by 2.9 billion years ago, because there is evidence of isolated "oxygen oases" at that time. They might date as far back as 3.5 billion years, but it's hard to tell because the fossil record is so patchy. That means the cyanobacteria were busy pumping out oxygen for at least half a billion years before oxygen started appearing in the air. That doesn't make a lot of sense. One explanation is that there were a lot of c
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Great Oxidation Event Counterargument

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kurt_Konhauser/publication/240493815_Biogeochemistry_Deepening_the_early_oxygen_debate/links/0deec52f59d859ccf6000000.pdf Our opposition claimed that because there was sulfur fractionation in rocks that are 2.5 million years old, and you need oxygen in order for sulfur fractionation to occur, that means that there was most likely a whiff of oxygen at the very very beginning of the great oxidation event. There is an alternative possibility that amorphous ferric oxyhydroxides formed in the photic zone and sank about 200 m to the bottom of the sea floor. There they would transform into haematite. Several scientists question the current idea of anoxia throughout the early and middle Archaean by presenting their views on early ocean oxygenation to deeper waters. This is backed up by how, prior to the entrance of free oxygen ~2.3 billion years ago, electrons were being consumed at a massive rate, and this rate changed when oxygen began to rise. Orga
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The Great Oxidation Event Opening Argument

Contrary to the oxygen-rich atmosphere that prevails today, early Earth was characterized by the absence of Oxygen both in the atmosphere and in the ocean. This early Earth possessed blood red oceans (due to the massive amounts of suspended iron in the water), harsh ultraviolet radiation (due to its lack of an ozone), large amounts of Methane, Nitrogen, and Carbon-Dioxide in the atmosphere (caused by continuous volcanic activity), and a thriving single-celled anaerobic population. T his persisted until the Great Oxidation Event , which was the period of time from roughly 2.2 to 2.5 billion years ago (although opinions of this vary), when Oxygen levels a dramatically increased to a never-before-reached amount. Evidence of this event is most obvious when looking at the primordial ocean. In the primordial ocean, the small amounts of Oxygen present in the atmosphere would be absorbed by decomposing organisms or bind with iron in the water to produce iron-oxide, otherwise known as rust
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