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#733 Andrew Knoll - A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters

The Dissenter

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How Does Photosynthesis Produce Oxygen?

There are non-biological ways of making oxygen. Nobody has ever figured out how to make oxygen in the quantities needed for an atmosphere that is familiar to us without involving biology. For most of Earth history, there was much, much less oxygen in the atmosphere than there is today. At about 2.4 billion years ago, the balance tips and we develop an atmosphere that has permanent amounts of oxygen.

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