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Science 30 September 2005:
Vol. 309. no. 5744, pp. 2202 - 2204
DOI: 10.1126/science.1116047
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Reports

The Rise of Oxygen over the Past 205 Million Years and the Evolution of Large Placental Mammals

Paul G. Falkowski,1,2* Miriam E. Katz,2 Allen J. Milligan,1 Katja Fennel,1,2 Benjamin S. Cramer,2 Marie Pierre Aubry,2 Robert A. Berner,3 Michael J. Novacek,4 Warren M. Zapol5

On the basis of a carbon isotopic record of both marine carbonates and organic matter from the Triassic-Jurassic boundary to the present, we modeled oxygen concentrations over the past 205 million years. Our analysis indicates that atmospheric oxygen approximately doubled over this period, with relatively rapid increases in the early Jurassic and the Eocene. We suggest that the overall increase in oxygen, mediated by the formation of passive continental margins along the Atlantic Ocean during the opening phase of the current Wilson cycle, was a critical factor in the evolution, radiation, and subsequent increase in average size of placental mammals.

1 Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University, 71 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.
2 Department of Geological Sciences, Rutgers University, 610 Taylor Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.
3 Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520–8109, USA.
4 Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY 10024–5192, USA.
5 Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care, Harvard Medical School at Massachusetts General Hospital, Fruit Street, Boston, MA 02114, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: falko{at}imcs.rutgers.edu

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