Andrew Knoll. “The Story of O: Oxygen and Evolution through Earth History.”

September 16, Andrew Knoll, “The Story of O: Oxygen and Evolution through Earth History.”   

In his new book Earth and Life: A Four Billion Year Conversation, Andy Knoll explains how pretty much everything you encounter as you stroll through the woods or snorkel in shallow seas has been shaped through time by interactions between physical and biological processes. At the Examiners, he will illustrate these interactions by tracing the history of oxygen gas through time. Geological evidence indicates that the young Earth was essentially oxygen-free and that oxygen at levels needed to support animals like ourselves has existed only in fairly recent times.