Green Oceans Helped Early Bacteria Harvest Light

PLainet Earth blue. Most of its surface is covered with water, the vast majority of them are the ocean, and water generally absorbs longer wavelengths of light, such as red and orange, and reflects the short blue wavelengths. When astronauts travel to space and look at their home, they see a blue ball in an area of ​​a black plane.

But the blue color that we connect to the oceans of the earth is a relatively modern development in the history of the evolutionary planet. During Archaean Eon, which spanned 4.0 to 2.5 billion years, the oceans shine in green, according to a new research, and this green light helped put the way to climb the old green blue algae that transformed the planet. Blue bacteria, which hurried algae at the great oxygen event, are known when oxygen came to control the atmosphere and ocean, which preceded the appearance of creatures with a higher order in the water and the earth.

“This research is a good example of land and life, because the surface environment and blue bacteria affected each other,” says Taro Matsu, a physicist at the University of Nagoya University in Japan. “Blue bacteria can flourish under the green environment.”

New Results It was published in Nature and development environment Written by Matsu and a team of physicists and chemists and Earth scientists. The researchers began achieving them through the vital geological chemistry of Archaean Eon, while high levels of iron are rushed from water thermal openings. Initially, the iron was completely dissolved, but with the start of the blue bacteria in reproduction and the production of oxygen, this iron had turned into iron hydroxide, a shape known as green light spread.

The bacteria, which early, had a hand in the heart of green water.

The green light, which was assumed by scientists, could have been working as a choice pressure on blue bacteria. They have tested this idea through a genetic cultivation and engineering of two distinct types of blue bacteria under different lighting conditions, one dominated by white light and one of the green light. Under the circumstances of the green light, bacteria that contain some specialized light harvest dyes grew more quickly. Scientists have long puzzled why some blue bacteria have made these additional dyes, known as Vikopilin, along with chlorophyll, which all light organisms use to absorb energy from white light. Now she gave the same answer: Vicobeline may have evolved to help these bacteria convert green light into energy.

The environments that are similar to those in Archaean are still present today, according to Matsu; About IWO Island in SatsuMa, the iron creates the thermal openings a similar green light window at an altitude of 18 feet. In a number of lakes all over the world, iron hydroxide combines shallow surfaces: Lake La Cruz in central East Spain, Lake Matano in Indonesia, Lake Pavin in France, and the Red Sea.

“I love this paper,” says Cameron Thrash, a marine environment scientist who studies oceanic microbes at the University of Southern California. He says that biological designers are very considering how phyotplantton exploits various ports based on the wavelengths available for light, for example, in the open ocean against coastal areas. “In this case, the authors are considering how the development of one of these spectral controls has occurred based on the occurrence of green surface water mostly in the corners.”

Thrash says he finds that it is especially interesting that researchers assume that the early premium bacteria of light was also their hand in turning water into green-and they follow how the Earth and life affect each other in complex ways.

There is also a glimmer that our oceans can change color. A 2023 studies in nature It has shown that the color of the global oceans has turned slightly over the past two decades, probably as a result of climate change. In particular, the areas of tropical oceans near the equator have become more green – due to changes in the plant plankton on the surface.

Looking at the future, Matsuo says it works with the NASA Research Center to study whether the green oceans can be an indication of life on remote planets. The green oceans also reflect more lighting than blue-which makes it likely to be monitored through life search investigations.

Matsu says he hopes the green oceans will become an indication of the early development of life in other places of the universe.

Lead: 100y design / shutter

• Catherine Jamun

  Spread on April 15, 2025

  Catherine Jamun is an independent scientific writer based in Santa Monica, California, who writes about the environment, science, fatherhood and motherhood. You can find it on X (previously known as Twitter) Kategammon.

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