Source: Earth’s Magnetic Field ‘Near-Collapse’ Boosted Evolution, Scientists Think
Life on Earth may exist thanks to a brief faltering in our planet’s protective magnetic field shell, scientists have found.
A bizarre drop in the strength of the magnetic field has been found to have occurred between 591 and 565 million years ago, which coincides with a major increase in the oxygen levels in Earth’s atmosphere and ocean, according to a new paper in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
This increase in oxygen is associated with the evolution of some of the earliest species of complex life on our planet, which therefore may have resulted from the magnetic field’s weakening.
Life first evolved on Earth around 3.7 billion years ago, existing as only very simple single-celled organisms for billions more years until multicellular life evolved about 1.7 billion years ago. Animals only appeared around 580 million years ago, in the Ediacaran period, and were mostly soft-bodied jellyfish-like creatures. However, between 575 and 565 million years ago, animals began to diversify in complexity, which is thought to have been triggered by a sudden jump in the level of oxygen in the atmosphere and oceans.
科学家发现，地球上生命的存在可能得益于地球保护性磁场外壳的短暂衰退。 根据《地球与环境通讯》杂志上的一篇新论文，人们发现 5.91 至 5.65 亿年前，磁场强度发生了奇怪的下降，而此时地球大气层和海洋中的氧气含量大幅增加。 氧气的增加与地球上一些最早复杂生命物种的进化有关，因此这可能是磁场减弱的结果。 生命在大约 37 亿年前首次在地球上诞生，仅作为非常简单的单细胞生物存在了数十亿年，直到大约 17 亿年前进化出多细胞生命。动物大约在 5.8 亿年前的埃迪卡拉时期才出现，而且大多是软体的水母状生物。然而，在 5.75 至 5.65 亿年前，动物的复杂性开始多样化，这被认为是由大气和海洋中氧气含量的突然跃升引发的。
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