text: Euxinia most frequently occurred in the Earth's ancient oceans, but its distribution and frequency of occurrence are still under debate. The original model was that it was quite constant for approximately a billion years. Some meta-analyses have questioned how persistent euxinic conditions were based on relatively small black shale deposits in a period when the ocean should have theoretically been preserving more organic matter.
  Before the Great Oxygenation Event happened approximately 2.3 billion years ago, there was little free oxygen in either the atmosphere or the ocean. It was originally thought that the ocean accumulated oxygen soon after the atmosphere did, but this idea was challenged by Canfield in 1998 when he proposed that instead of the deep ocean becoming oxidizing, it became sulfidic. This hypothesis is partially based on the disappearance of banded iron formations from the geological records 1.8 billion years ago. Canfield argued that although enough oxygen entered the atmosphere to erode sulfides in continental rocks, there was not enough oxygen to mix into the deep ocean. This would result in an anoxic deep ocean with an increased flux of sulfur from the continents. The sulfur would strip iron ions from the sea water, resulting in iron sulfide (pyrite), a portion of which was eventually buried. When sulfide became the major oceanic reductant instead of iron, the deep water became euxinic. This has become what is known as the Canfield ocean, a model backed by the increase in presence of δS in sedimentary pyrite and the discovery of evidence of the first sulfate evaporites.
  Anoxia and sulfidic conditions often occur together. In anoxic conditions anaerobic, sulfate reducing bacteria convert sulfate into sulfide, creating sulfidic conditions. The emergence of this metabolic pathway was very important in the pre-oxygenated oceans because adaptations to otherwise inhabitable or "toxic" environments like this may have played a role in the diversification of early eukaryotes and protozoa in the pre-Phanerozoic.
  Euxinia still occurs occasionally today, mostly in meromictic lakes and silled basins such as the Black Sea and some fjords. It is rare in modern times; less than 0.5% of today's sea floor is euxinic.