Ancient microbes responsible for breathing life into ocean 'deserts'

Billions of years ago, Earth differed greatly from our modern environment -- the ancient atmosphere contained almost no oxygen. The life-supporting atmosphere we currently enjoy did not develop overnight. On the most basic level, biological activity in the ocean shaped the oxygen concentrations in the atmosphere. New research shows that "oxygen oases" in the surface ocean were sites of significant oxygen production long before the breathing gas began to accumulate in the atmosphere.

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