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Global Challenges

The Earth's early atmosphere, and how oxygen developed

  • 2 things to know
  • Paper 4

Overview

The composition of today's atmosphere, the volcanic gases of the early atmosphere, why ideas about it are uncertain and the evidence used, how carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans and was locked into carbonate rocks and fossil fuels, how photosynthesis slowly produced oxygen and its equation, why oxygen mattered for life, and why nitrogen became the most abundant gas.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

What is thought to have released the gases that made up the Earth's earliest atmosphere?

Key term

Which other gases are thought to have been present in the early atmosphere?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What is the composition of the Earth's atmosphere today?

    Model answer

    About 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen, with small amounts of argon, carbon dioxide and water vapour.

  2. 2

    Roughly what proportion of today's atmosphere is carbon dioxide?

    Model answer

    About 0.04%.

  3. 3

    What is thought to have released the gases that made up the Earth's earliest atmosphere?

    Model answer

    Intense volcanic activity during the first billion years of the Earth's history.

  4. 4

    Which gas is thought to have been the main one in the Earth's early atmosphere?

    Model answer

    Carbon dioxide.

  5. 5

    Which other gases are thought to have been present in the early atmosphere?

    Model answer

    Large amounts of water vapour and small amounts of methane and ammonia, with little or no oxygen.

  6. 6

    Why are ideas about the early atmosphere less certain than measurements of the atmosphere today?

    Model answer

    No one was there to measure it and the evidence from billions of years ago is fragmentary and indirect, so the models may change as new evidence is found.

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