Early Earth Notes

The earth was formed 4.6 billion years ago!

So what was it like?

Early Earth Landscape:

History of the EarthIn a single day.

Courtesy: NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center

12.00 to 4.00am

“The Big Bang”

No lifeA planet with

poisonous gases in the air, no soil and a hot sea.

4.00am to 8.00pm

Single celled organisms, called stromatolites, begin to produce oxygen.

Just before 8.30pm

First marine plants

8.50pm

Jellyfish and simple marine organisms

Just after 9.00pm

Trilobites and creatures of the Burgess Shale

10.00pm

Plant life of the carboniferous and the first land creatures.

11.00pm to 11.45pm

Reign of the Reptiles – Dinosaurs Rule!

1 minute and 17 seconds to midnight

First humans appear.

Clock analogy for some key events in evolutionary history

What was early Earth like?

Very hot!The friction of

colliding meteorites could have heated its surface

The compression of minerals and the decay of radioactive materials heated its interior

Atmosphere?

Volcanoes might have spewed lava and gases, relieving some pressure in Earth’s interior

These gases helped form Earth’s ancient atmosphere Little free oxygen A lot of water vapor and other gases

Carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen, methane, ammonia

How did life originate?

Spontaneous Generation Idea that nonliving material can produce life Can you give me an example of what Aristotle was

seeing?

Spontaneous Generation

Francesco Redi was the first to disprove this idea. How do you think he did it?

Spontaneous Generation

Louis Pasteur went on to disprove it as well.

Meteorites

What might have been carried on the meteorite?

Soups On!Earth’s atmosphere was probably made

up of gases that contained organic elements.

What are they??

Primordial SoupEnergy fueled chemical reactions among

these gases which combined them into organic compounds.

Primordial SoupThese molecules were washed into the

oceans, mixing together

Theories on how life began

Alexander Oparin Life began in the oceans Energy from the sun, lightning, and Earth’s heat

triggered chemical reactions to produce small organic molecules

Chemical Evolution

Harold Urey and Stanley Miller provided evidence to support this.

Chemical Evolution

Miller Urey Results

After a week, they found several kinds of amino acids, sugars, and other small organic molecules

Evidence supported Oparin’s hypothesis!Life began in the oceans and Energy from

the sun, lightning, and Earth’s heat triggered chemical reactions to produce small organic molecules

1.  The earth was formed ~4.5 billion years ago 2.  It took ~500 million years for the crust to solidify.

3.  3.9 bya Earth might have cooled enough for water in its atmosphere to condense; led to millions of years of rainstorms with lightning – ENOUGH TO FILL EARTH’S OCEANS!

4. The oldest fossils of microorganisms (earliest evidence of life)

• 3.5 billion years old, • embedded in rocks in western Australia

                        Prokaryotes dominated from 3.5 to 2 billion years ago.     - During this time, the first divergence occurred:

Bacteria and Archaebacteria                                   

Oxygen began accumulating in the atmosphere about 2.7 billion years ago.                       

a.  Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic prokaryotes that are still present today à produced oxygen. 

Banded iron formations are evidence of the age of oxygenic photosynthesis – approximately 2 BYA in photo

5.  The oldest eukaryotic fossils are ~2 billion years old.                       

a.  Symbiotic community of prokaryotes living within larger prokaryotes.         Mitochondria and chloroplasts 6.  The oldest fossils of multicellular organisms are ~1.2 billion years old.

7. Fossilized animal embryos from Chinese sediments 570 million years ago.

           8.  Plants, fungi, and animals began colonizing land ~500 million years ago.                        a.  First plants transformed the landscape…                        b.  Then animals were able to take advantage of new niches                                   

Mammals evolved 50 to 60 million years ago.

Some major episodes in the history of life.