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Originally published in Science Express on 7 December 2006
Science 5 January 2007:
Vol. 315. no. 5808, pp. 92 - 95
DOI: 10.1126/science.1135013
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Reports

Late-Neoproterozoic Deep-Ocean Oxygenation and the Rise of Animal Life

Don E. Canfield,1* Simon W. Poulton,2 Guy M. Narbonne3

Because animals require oxygen, an increase in late-Neoproterozoic oxygen concentrations has been suggested as a stimulus for their evolution. The iron content of deep-sea sediments shows that the deep ocean was anoxic and ferruginous before and during the Gaskiers glaciation 580 million years ago and that it became oxic afterward. The first known members of the Ediacara biota arose shortly after the Gaskiers glaciation, suggesting a causal link between their evolution and this oxygenation event. A prolonged stable oxic environment may have permitted the emergence of bilateral motile animals some 25 million years later.

1 Nordic Center for Earth Evolution (NordCEE) and Institute of Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M, Denmark.
2 School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK.
3 Department of Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: dec{at}biology.sdu.dk

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