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Abstract A geologically rapid Neoproterozoic oxygenation event is commonly linked to the appearance of marine animal groups in the fossil record. However, there is still debate about what evidence from the sedimentary geochemical record—if any—provides strong support for a persistent shift in surface oxygen immediately preceding the rise of animals. We present statistical learning analyses of a large dataset of geochemical data and associated geological context from the Neoproterozoic and Palaeozoic sedimentary record and then use Earth system modelling to link trends in redox-sensitive trace metal and organic carbon concentrations to the oxygenation of Earth’s oceans and atmosphere. We do not find evidence for the wholesale oxygenation of Earth’s oceans in the late Neoproterozoic era. We do, however, reconstruct a moderate long-term increase in atmospheric oxygen and marine productivity. These changes to the Earth system would have increased dissolved oxygen and food supply in shallow-water habitats during the broad interval of geologic time in which the major animal groups first radiated. This approach provides some of the most direct evidence for potential physiological drivers of the Cambrian radiation, while highlighting the importance of later Palaeozoic oxygenation in the evolution of the modern Earth system. 

Significance The decline in extinction rates through geologic time is a well-established but enigmatic feature of the marine animal fossil record. We hypothesize that this trend is driven largely by secular changes in the oxygenation of the atmosphere and oceans, as physiological principles predict that marine animals would have been more vulnerable to ocean warming during intervals of geological time with limited atmospheric oxygenation. We test this at a global oceanographic scale by combining models of ocean biogeochemistry and animal physiology. We show that atmospheric oxygen exerts a first-order control on the simulated extinction vulnerability of marine animals, highlighting its likely importance in controlling extinction trends through geologic time.