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. Organisms began to form around this time that let out O2 as their waste, which helped create the rise of oxygen. This is similar to iron reacting with water to create rust, a product of oxygen. Over the next ~1.5 billion years the oxidation levels began to rise and deplete the levels of reductants on Earth that inhibited oxygen from forming.
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/153110702753621321 (Sulfur Fractionation)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3845709.pdf?refreqid=search:4709c5e96a5a502eb8c72c0b3702c4fd (Organisms began to form)
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