This led to the existence of oxygen-based plant and animal life (Great oxygenation event).

The formations are abundant around the time of the great oxygenation event, 2,400 mya.

Its gradual change to the present state was a long process (see Great Oxygenation Event).

The extraordinary thing is, that most minerals owe their formation to life, or at least to the Great Oxygenation Event.

It is now well documented that oxygen level reached at least 10% of the present value 2.4 billion years ago (for details see Great Oxygenation Event).

Eventually, free oxygen got into the atmosphere or air, making the Earth's surface suitable for aerobic life (see Great Oxygenation Event).

It has been proposed that rise of free oxygen that occurred during the Great Oxygenation Event removed methane in the atmosphere through oxidation.

Most of these new minerals were hydrated, oxidized forms of minerals formed due to dynamic mantle and crust processes after the Great Oxygenation event.

Knowing that photosynthesis predated the Great Oxygenation Event by some amount, research has focused on potential buffers that could have locked up oxygen and prevented it from accumulating in the atmosphere.

In the late Archaean eon an oxygen-containing atmosphere began to develop, apparently from photosynthesizing algae (see Great Oxygenation Event) which have been found as stromatolite fossils from 2.7 billion years ago.