Atmospheric Conditions in Genesis 1

From our Old Earth Creationism perspective, several of the descriptions in Genesis 1 involve atmospheric conditions. For example, we interpret the light during Day 1 as sunlight beginning to appear on the surface of the Earth through a dark fog-like covering. In other words, the atmosphere covering the Earth is turning from mostly opaque to being more translucent. Similarly, for Day 4 we interpret the appearance of the Sun, Moon, and stars in the sky to be a result of the clouds and atmosphere covering the Earth to be fairly clear. 

From a scientific perspective, these events happened a very long time ago. Our estimates are that the Day 4 event happened hundreds of millions of years ago and the Day 1 event happened billions of years ago. And the descriptions in Genesis 1 are about the transparency of the atmosphere. There are some ways to estimate a probable chemical composition of the atmosphere from deep Earth history. The most well known example is the Great Oxidation Event that occurred between about 2.4 and 2.0 billion years ago. We know this from the banded iron formations and other chemical changes in the geology. 

The transparency or opaqueness of the atmosphere is modeled based on the probable chemical composition. Models seem to be able to provide accuracy for general trends, but the output from the volcanoes and plant output is often difficult to gauge. This leaves the opacity levels of the atmosphere somewhat uncertain. Therefore, when estimating the order of events concerning the opacity of an atmosphere, at this time we defer to the sequence given in Genesis 1 over the results of any modeling of the atmosphere by scientists. This is especially the case for the Day 4 event.