Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Surprising discovery shows a strong link between Earth's magnetic field and atmospheric oxygen levels

https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/800a/2025/surpising-discovery-sh.jpg

Time variations of the oxygen (O₂) content and the VGADM in the past 540 million years. Credit: Sci. Adv. (2025). DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adu8826

Every breath we take in contains 21% oxygen, the gas that makes life on Earth possible.

Oxygen, in its combined oxide state, has always been abundant in Earth's crust, but elemental diatomic oxygen became part of our atmosphere around 2.4 to 2.5 billion years ago as a gift from cyanobacteria, which triggered the Great Oxidation Event and breathed life into Earth.

by Sanjukta Mondal, Phys.org
edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan

A joint venture between NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Leeds discovered that the Earth's magnetic field strength and atmospheric oxygen levels over the past 540 years have seemed to spike and dip at the same time, showing a strong, statistically significant correlation between the two.

This correlation could arise from unexpected connections between geophysical processes in Earth's deep interior, redox reactions on Earth's surface, and biogeochemical cycling.

According to findings published in Science Advances, both magnetic field strength and atmospheric oxygen levels reached their peak intensities between 330 and 220 million years ago.

The Great Oxidation Event: A cautionary climate change tale | by Jonathan Hester | Medium

Scientists have long speculated that Earth's magnetic field may play a role in making the planet habitable, a hypothesis reinforced by paleomagnetic records that show that the existence of a geomagnetic field overlaps with the timeline of life's emergence. However, there has been little direct evidence of a long-term connection, as most Earth system models don't even include the geomagnetic field when studying how oxygen levels in the atmosphere have changed over time.

Previous simulations have shown that the magnetic field may be responsible for preventing the atmosphere from being stripped away or eroded by space activity, such as ionization and ohmic heating, arising from solar winds and solar energetic particles. However, there is a lack of side-by-side comparison of long-term magnetic field and oxygen level records.

This study set out to uncover the statistically significant link between both factors by analyzing two completely independent data sets: paleomagnetic records or geomagnetic data preserved in rocks and minerals for virtual geomagnetic axial dipole moment (VGADM) and various geochemical proxies for atmospheric oxygen, such as fossilized charcoal in sediments and ocean anoxia data.

The findings reveal the highest correlation, 0.72, between Earth's geomagnetic dipole and atmospheric oxygen levels over the last 540 million years.
The highest value occurred when there was no time gap between the two, and even after removing long-term trends, the connection remained strong, with only a slight lag of about 1 million years, which is considered negligible on a colossal geological timescale.

This link suggests a deep, previously unrecognized connection between Earth's interior and the surface environment that supports life.

These findings enhance our understanding of Earth's evolutionary history and provide deeper insight into what makes our planet habitable, offering valuable clues in the search for life beyond Earth.

More information:

Weijia Kuang et al,

Strong link between Earth's oxygen level and geomagnetic dipole revealed since the last 540 million years,

Science Advances (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adu8826

Journal information: Science Advances

Written for you by our author Sanjukta Mondal, edited by Sadie Harley , and fact-checked and reviewed by Robert Egan —this article is the result of careful human work.

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Tiny gallium nitride transistors boost chip speed and efficiency in new 3D design | Phys.org

Tiny gallium nitride transistors boost chip speed and efficiency in new 3D design

by Adam Zewe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
edited by Lisa Lock, reviewed by Robert Egan

Researchers have developed a new fabrication process that integrates high-performance gallium nitride transistors onto standard silicon CMOS chips in a way that is low-cost and scalable. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The advanced semiconductor material gallium nitride will likely be key for the next generation of high-speed communication systems and the power electronics needed for state-of-the-art data centers.

Unfortunately, the high cost of gallium nitride (GaN) and the specialization required to incorporate this semiconductor material into conventional electronics have limited its use in commercial applications.

Now, researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed a new fabrication process that integrates high-performance GaN transistors onto standard silicon CMOS chips in a way that is low-cost and scalable, and compatible with existing semiconductor foundries.

Their method involves building many tiny transistors on the surface of a GaN chip, cutting out each individual transistor, and then bonding just the necessary number of transistors onto a silicon chip using a low-temperature process that preserves the functionality of both materials.

The cost remains minimal since only a tiny amount of GaN material is added to the chip, but the resulting device can receive a significant performance boost from compact, high-speed transistors. In addition, by separating the GaN circuit into discrete transistors that can be spread over the silicon chip, the new technology is able to reduce the temperature of the overall system.

The researchers used this process to fabricate a power amplifier, an essential component in mobile phones, that achieves higher signal strength and efficiencies than devices with silicon transistors. In a smartphone, this could improve call quality, boost wireless bandwidth, enhance connectivity, and extend battery life.

Because their method fits into standard procedures, it could improve electronics that exist today as well as future technologies. Down the road, the new integration scheme could even enable quantum applications, as GaN performs better than silicon at the cryogenic temperatures essential for many types of quantum computing.

"If we can bring the cost down, improve the scalability, and, at the same time, enhance the performance of the electronic device, it is a no-brainer that we should adopt this technology. We've combined the best of what exists in silicon with the best possible gallium nitride electronics.

"These hybrid chips can revolutionize many commercial markets," says Pradyot Yadav, an MIT graduate student and lead author of a paper on this method.

The paper was presented at the RTu2C session of the Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium (RFIC 2025) held 15–17 June 2025 in San Francisco, CA.

"To address the slowdown of Moore's Law in transistor scaling, heterogeneous integration has emerged as a promising solution for continued system scaling, reduced form factor, improved power efficiency, and cost optimization.

"Particularly in wireless technology, the tight integration of compound semiconductors with silicon-based wafers is critical to realizing unified systems of front-end integrated circuits, baseband processors, accelerators, and memory for next-generation antennas-to-AI platforms.

"This work makes a significant advancement by demonstrating 3D integration of multiple GaN chips with silicon CMOS and pushes the boundaries of current technological capabilities," says Atom Watanabe, a research scientist at IBM who was not involved with this paper.

More information: 3D-Millimeter Wave Integrated Circuit (3D-mmWIC) : A Gold-Free 3D-Integration Platform for Scaled RF GaN-on-Si Dielets with Intel 16 Si CMOS. IEEE Radio-Frequency Integrated Circuit Symposium (RFIC), San Francisco, CA, Jun. 2025.

Provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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