When Ancient Bacteria Nearly Erased All Life On Earth

By The First Dawn, Oct.31, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fu6F6DkIlQ

Over 2.4 billion years ago, tiny cyanobacteria triggered one of the most profound transformations in Earth’s history — the Great Oxygenation Event.

 Through photosynthesis, these microbes began releasing oxygen into the atmosphere for the first time. What started as a revolutionary innovation soon became a planetary catastrophe. For the anaerobic organisms that had dominated Earth, oxygen was a deadly toxin. As its levels rose, ecosystems collapsed in what became the first and most extensive mass extinction ever recorded. This crisis, known as the Oxygen Catastrophe, reshaped the planet from the inside out. Iron-rich oceans rusted red, methane-based greenhouse gases vanished, and global temperatures plummeted, possibly leading to a “Snowball Earth.” 

Yet from this devastation emerged a new world, where oxygen would become the foundation for complex multicellular life. The Great Oxygenation Event stands as a paradox — life’s greatest invention was also its first apocalypse, a reminder that evolution’s progress often comes at an unimaginable cost.

 

 

 

The Life of Earth

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