Continuation of the note on the origin of life on Earth “Meaningless dispute… And later its comprehension.”

According to the information from the same book by W. Sullivan, “the first fossils” (as can be assumed, we are talking about some living organisms) appeared in the above table three billion years ago. I admit that it was much later, because the first organisms had no “hard” shells or skeletal structures, and therefore there was NOTHING to preserve in the sediments.

But we are interested in something else: Why did plants appear on the soil incomparably later than algae? According to the same table, about 330 million years ago, while vertebrate fish carcharodon (sharks) appeared only thirty million years later, 300 million years ago. Ants and bees lived about 150-200 million years ago. (Of course, without terrestrial plants, their existence is impossible!)

In connection with the above question, the following thought flashed across: The Earth’s primary oxygen-free atmosphere did NOT absorb the deadly short-wave ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, which killed all life on the Earth’s surface. But algae in the ocean were still protected from it by water and therefore could receive visible light through a layer of water and, thanks to chlorophyll, synthesize many organic molecules from water and carbon dioxide, releasing oxygen as a waste of these reactions. Oxygen, mixing with the atmosphere of methane-ammonia-carbon dioxide with water vapor, began to absorb this most deadly radiation, forming triatomic oxygen – ozone!

I remind you that it was NOT OZONE that protected and protects us from dangerous short–wave ultraviolet radiation (with a wavelength shorter than 2800 Angstroms, especially 2540 Angstroms and 1850 Angstroms – ozone-forming radiation), but oxygen molecules at any level of the atmosphere, because this radiation was absorbed by them, FORMING OZONE AS a RESULT OF THIS ABSORPTION!

Due to the oxygen of algae, the composition of the atmosphere began to change to nitrogen-oxygen with water vapor, which, by the way, also contribute to the formation of ozone. The soil surface ceased to be deadly to any TERRESTRIAL organisms and life began to progress rapidly on the soil itself, and soil plants protectong themselves from harmful radiation, also releasing oxygen during photosynthesis! Gradually, the composition of the atmosphere changed radically and became approximately the same as it is today.

Another interesting hypothesis related to algae is that, unlike terrestrial plants, they began to accumulate iodine in their tissues! For what? According to a hypothesis I once read – TO PROTECT ALGAE FROM OZONE!

Ozone dissolves in water ten times better than oxygen, and this, obviously, “did not like” the algae, which synthesized oxygen “for their own trouble”!

In order to protect themselves from “excessive” ozone in the water, they began to accumulate the “antidote” of ozone poison – iodine!

These are the thoughts that came when reading an informative book, but an ordinary way of thinking.

It turns out that not even original ideas, but pure information, is also capable of awakening interesting thoughts in the minds, “interesting”, at least from my point of view, which is purely unprofessional in the subject under consideration.

Faciant meliora potentes.

If I’m wrong, let my seniors correct me.

28 I 2026