A ground-breaking geological re-evaluation has fundamentally challenged how scientists interpret the Shunga-Francevillian event—a pivotal period long thought to represent a global disruption in Earth’s ancient carbon cycle. By re-examining organic-rich rock formations, a team of geochemists proved that unique anomalous carbon signals were actually caused by local, subsurface volcanic intrusions cooking organic material into methane rather than a planetary-wide atmosphere change. This discovery forces earth scientists to completely rewrite the timeline of early biological development and global oxygen accumulation.
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