Roger Buick
August 25, 2021
Volcanic eruptions may have spurred first ‘whiffs’ of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere
![person crouching in distance on layered rock](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2021/08/25135955/weathered-MtMcRae-shale-150x150.jpg)
A new analysis of 2.5-billion-year-old rocks from Australia finds that volcanic eruptions may have stimulated population surges of marine microorganisms, creating the first puffs of oxygen into the atmosphere. This would change existing stories of Earth’s early atmosphere, which assumed that most changes in the early atmosphere were controlled by geologic or chemical processes.
January 24, 2020
Tiny, ancient meteorites suggest early Earth’s atmosphere was rich in carbon dioxide
![shiny black balls on red background](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/01/24140704/deep-sea-spherules-150x150.png)
Tiny meteorites that fell to Earth 2.7 billion years ago suggest that the atmosphere at that time was high in carbon dioxide, which agrees with current understanding of how our planet’s atmospheric gases changed over time.
June 20, 2019
Looking for life: UW researchers, presentations abound at 2019 astrobiology conference in Bellevue
![](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2019/06/20132356/Moon_618-150x150.jpg)
A roundup of UW talents and presentations in AbSciCon2019, the national conference on astrobiology — the search for life in the universe — to be held in Bellevue, June 24-28.
July 9, 2018
Oxygen levels on early Earth rose and fell several times before the successful Great Oxidation Event
![The Jeerinah Formation in Western Australia, where a UW-led team found a nitrogen isotope "excursion." “Nitrogen isotopes tell a story about oxygenation of the surface ocean, and this oxygenation spans hundreds of kilometers across a marine basin and lasts for somewhere less than 50 million years," said lead author Matt Koehler.](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/07/09092840/ViewRoyHill_RogerBuick_smaller_usel-150x150.jpg)
Earth’s oxygen levels rose and fell more than once hundreds of millions of years before the planetwide success of the Great Oxidation Event about 2.4 billion years ago, new research from the University of Washington shows.
November 27, 2017
Less life: Limited phosphorus recycling suppressed early Earth’s biosphere
![As Earth's oxygen levels rose to near-modern levels over the last 800 million years, phosphorus levels increased, as well, according to modeling led by the UW's Michael Kipp and others. Accordingly, Kipp says, large phosphate deposits show up in abundance in the rock record at about this time. This is a Wyoming portion of The Phosphoria Formation, a deposit that stretches across several states in the western United States and is the largest source of phosphorus fertilizer in the country. The photo shows layers of phosphorus that are 10s of meters thick, shales the contain high concentrations of organic carbon and phosphorus. Kipp said many such deposits are documented over time but are rare in the Precambrian era. "Thus, they might represent a conspicuous temporal record of limited phosphorus recycling."](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/11/04133431/Phosphorus_photo_USE-150x150.jpg)
The amount of biomass – life – in Earth’s ancient oceans may have been limited due to low recycling of the key nutrient phosphorus, according to new research by the University of Washington and the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
January 17, 2017
Conditions right for complex life may have come and gone in Earth’s distant past
![A 1.9-billion-year-old stromatolite — or mound made by microbes that lived shallow water — called the Gunflint Formation in northern Minnesota. The environment of the oxygen "overshoot" described in research by Michael Kipp, Eva Stüeken and Roger Buick may have included this sort of oxygen-rich setting that is suitable for complex life.](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/01/04143921/100_0527-Schreiber-beach-Gunflint-basal-strom-150x150.jpg)
Conditions suitable to support complex life may have developed in Earth’s oceans — and then faded — more than a billion years before life truly took hold, a new University of Washington-led study has found.
May 9, 2016
Early Earth’s air weighed less than half of today’s atmosphere
![swirly rocks](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/05/04153928/Stromatolite_2.7Ga_Buick-150x150.jpg)
The idea that the young Earth had a thicker atmosphere turns out to be wrong. New research from the University of Washington uses bubbles trapped in 2.7 billion-year-old rocks to show that air at that time exerted at most half the pressure of today’s atmosphere. The results, published online May 9 in Nature Geoscience, reverse…
February 16, 2015
Ancient rocks show life could have flourished on Earth 3.2 billion years ago
![photo of red rocks and blue sky](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2015/02/04173748/gorgeckmanowar-150x150.jpg)
Some of the oldest rocks on the planet push back scientific estimates of when life could have covered the Earth by 1 billion years.