required some mechanism for removing and storing organic carbon out of contact with the atmosphere.O2 is released by photosynthesis but taken up in respiration, a balanced chemical process. To disrupt the balance in favour of atmospheric O2 increase, organic matter has to be removed from the system. If organic matter dies and becomes sequestered in sediments at the ocean bottom, O2 will increase in the ocean and eventually outgas into the atmosphere. Another hypothesis for O2 increase is that the concentration of reduced compounds like Fe[2+] became depleted, so they were not available to react with O2.

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