Oxygen escape from the Earth during geomagnetic reversals: Implications to mass extinction

摘要: Abstract The evolution of life is affected by variations atmospheric oxygen level and geomagnetic field intensity. Oxygen can escape into interplanetary space as ions after gaining momentum from solar wind, but Earth's strong dipole reduces the transfer efficiency ion outflow rate, except for time polarity reversals when significantly weakened in strength becomes Mars-like morphology. newest databases available Phanerozoic era illustrate that reversal rate increased decreased marine diversity showed a gradual pattern mass extinctions lasting millions years. We propose accumulated during an interval could have led to catastrophic drop level, which known be cause extinction. simulated Triassic–Jurassic event, using modified Martian model with input quiet wind inferred Sun-like stars. results show enhance 3–4 orders only if magnetic was extremely weak, even without consideration weather effects. This suggests our hypothesis possible explanation correlation between Therefore, this causal relation indeed exists, it should “many-to-one” scenario rather previously considered “one-to-one”, planetary much more important than thought habitability.