Ozone layer called the ozone-oxygen cycle. Chemically, this can be described as: About 90 percent of the ozone in the atmosphere is contained in the stratosphere. Ozone concentrations are greatest between about , where they range from about 2 to 8 parts per million. If all of the ozone were compressed to the pressure of the air at sea level, it would be only thick. Although the concentration of the ozone in the ozone layer is very small, it is vitally important to life because it absorbs biologically harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation coming from the sun. Extremely short or vacuum UV (10–100
History of Earth layer near the upper part of the atmosphere. The ozone layer absorbed, and still absorbs, a significant amount of the ultraviolet radiation that once had passed through the atmosphere. It allowed cells to colonize the surface of the ocean and eventually the land: without the ozone layer, ultraviolet radiation bombarding land and sea would have caused unsustainable levels of mutation in exposed cells. Photosynthesis had another major impact. Oxygen was toxic; much life on Earth probably died out as its levels rose in what is known as the "oxygen catastrophe". Resistant forms survived and thrived, and some developed the ability