Oxygenation of the atmosphere and upper layers of the oceans and evolution of aerobic microbial ecosystems during Proterozoic time are amongst the most profound events in Earth history. The international Earth science community has striven for years to understand these events, often through large multidisciplinary research initiatives such as the highly successful ICDP-sponsored FAR-DEEP project in eastern Fennoscandia. This new multinational, multidisciplinary initiative GOE-DEEP aims to significantly expand understanding of Paleoproterozoic Earth history by drilling between eight and eleven boreholes to obtain new core material from the Franceville Basin of Gabon, likely the best-preserved archive of Paleoproterozoic sedimentary rocks globally. Drill cores from those rocks will form a new sedimentological, paleontological, geochronological and geochemical knowledge base. Such data will reduce significantly existing uncertainties about the genesis of geochemical proxy signals and help reconstruct original environmental conditions across this critical time of Earth’s past.

KEYWORDS:  Africa, Gabon, Francevillian, Paleoproterozoic, Biochemical Cycles, Great Oxidation Event, Redox Conditions