The Earth has spent nearly 4.6 billion years, from the formation of the initial solar system to the current flourishing human civilization, during which time there have been too many secrets on earth that are worth exploring. Let us take the Earth Era as a clue and take you through the history corridor of the Earth to review this spectacular and mysterious past of the Earth.
Hadean
4.56 billion to 4 billion years ago, at the beginning of the formation of the Earth, the Surface of the Earth was covered with a "sea of magma", the Earth continued to be hit by a large number of meteorites, and after the Earth-Moon Impact Event, the Moon separated. Early oceans and atmospheres also formed during this period, but there was no biological activity.
Early days of the formation of the solar system
The Magma Sea of the Earth
The Great Impact of Theia – the formation of the Earth-Moon system
Archean
From 40 to 2.5 billion years ago, the late heavy bombardment period of the solar system ended in 3.8 billion years, the earth began to cool, but still in a state of high heat flow value, the continental crust began to form, and ultra-high temperature geology formed a combination of rock types that modern Earth could not form. The earliest prokaryotes of life on Earth were born near hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. Prokaryotes began to form the oldest stromatolites.
Prokaryotes form in hydrothermal vents of submarine volcanoes
Continental crust evolution and a large number of stromatolites
Taikoo Imaginary Diagram
Stacked stone restoration and modern Shark Bay stromatolite
Proterozoic
Between 2.5 and 541 million years ago, the "Great Oxidation Event" caused two huge leaps in the earth's oxygen content, and two supercontinents were formed during the Proterozoic period, the Columbia and Rodinia supercontinents, with active plate movement. The Neoproterozoic "Snowball Earth" event brought the whole world into an ice age, and with the cleavage of the Rhodinia supercontinent and the end of the Snowball Earth, multicellular life evolved rapidly, and the Ediacaran biota opened the prologue to the Explosion of Life.
Banded Iron Construction (BIF) Associated with Great Oxidation Events
The Columbia supercontinent and the Rodinia supercontinent
Snowball Earth extends the ice layers to the equator
Ediacaran biota
Cambrian
541 to 485 million years ago, after the earth entered the Cambrian, the temperature and oxygen content reached a new height, the "Cambrian life explosion" event produced almost all "phylum" classes in a short period of time, the earth for the first time produced creatures with a hard shell, predators rely on keen compound eyes and athletic swimming ability and good at hiding predators to build the initial food chain, promoting biological evolution, of which the odd shrimp with a length of more than 1 meter was the strongest predator at the time, Obabin sea scorpion, trilobites, grotesque insects, Ancient cup creatures are representative creatures.
Cambrian Ocean - Odd shrimp is the strongest predator
The Obavin sea scorpion is preying on the Pika
Neck shrimp (top left), Kunming fish (center left), grotesque worm (bottom left), Kerygmachela (center), Obabbin sea scorpion (right)
Maltaceae
Trilobites and trilobites fossils
Ordovician
From 485 to 444 million years ago, the initial carbon dioxide concentration was more than ten times that of today, and the evolution of life was stagnant due to the strong greenhouse effect. The sea water temperature of the middle and late Ordovicians was moderate and stable, life actively multiplied and competed, and the species grew rapidly, that is, the "Ordovician biological radiation", and the horn stones of cephalopods dominated. Representative organisms include echinoderms, bryozoans, polyps, brachiopods, trilobites, and the early primitive fish "beetlefish". After the "Great Radiation" took place the first mass extinction in Earth's history, with 85% of plants and animals disappearing. As sea level declined and the land area increased, some of the algae left on land adapted to land life and became the first to land.
Ordovician marine life represented by horn stones
Some arthropods of the late Ordovician can make brief landfalls in search of stranded animals
Protect your own nailfish by hard head armor
Silurian
444 to 419 million years ago, penstone and plate foot crab are representatives of this era, the climate is warm for a long time, glacier melting leads to sea level rise, the global high temperature leads to the weakening of atmospheric circulation, the oxygen content in the depths of the ocean is insufficient, and the earth is in a long-term trapped hypoxic environment, and a large number of black penstone shale layers have developed. The ocean is dotted with floating or fixed penstone animals, and the plate-footed crab is the dominant force of the sea at this time, and jawed fish begin to appear, and corals and foraminifera are also flourishing at this time. The first vascular plant, the capuchin fern, also represented the beginning of biological conquest of the land.
Land top capsule ferns flourish, and the ocean is the world of plate-footed crabs
The Shiruki represents biology
The penstone is a social semi-cord animal
Floating in the ocean or fixed on the bottom of the ocean
Devonian
About 419 to 359 million years ago, for the first time, terrestrial biological radiation appeared, organisms spread throughout the land and fresh water, plants gradually evolved roots, leaves, and even in the late stage, seed ferns that multiply by seeds appeared, and a large number of insects traveled through the dense jungle. The Devonian oceans, known as the "Fish Age", were dominated by shieldfish, spiny fish, cartilaginous fish and teleost fish, and the 1.5-tonne, about 6-meter-long Dunn's fish were the dominant fish in the ocean. In the Late Devonian, the representative of the vertebrates, the fish and stone salamander, began to land, and the animals began to conquer the land. The Late Devonian occurred the second mass extinction in Earth's history, lasting 15 to 25 million years, and 50% of the genus on Earth disappeared.
Devonian – The Age of Fish
Dunn's fish that is preying
The first vertebrate to land, the fishstone salamander
Carboniferous
From 359 to 299 million years ago, plant prosperity made the oxygen content reach 35%, scaly wood, Koda wood can grow to 30 to 50 meters high, insects can grow to more than 2 meters, such as knotted horse land, Pumono scorpion, etc., Carboniferous formations have thus become the main source of coal now. The ocean has always been the domain of fish, with cartilaginous fish and ray-finned fish dominating. In the late Carboniferous period, probably due to the drastic climate changes caused by the ice age, gradually changed from warm and humid to dry and cold, and the forests were isolated from each other, becoming a small piece of jungle with few large trees, that is, the "Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse Event", and a small-scale extinction of animals and plants occurred.
Large insects such as the knotted horse land travel through the Carboniferous rainforest
Amphibians flourished during the Carboniferous period
A giant veined dragonfly with a wingspan of nearly 1 meter per hour and a speed of 60 kilometers per hour
A mid-baroid spider that is preying on reptiles
The Carboniferous rainforest is on its way to collapse
Permian
From 299 to 252 million years ago, "pancontines" gradually formed, the continental crust was raised, the climate was drier, and gymnosperms adapted to the arid environment with their shell-protected seeds. Clad in fine scales, the eggs laid were covered with hard shells and amniotic membranes wrapped around embryos, and the land entered the "age of giant beasts". At the end of the Permian, the most tragic mass extinction event in the history of the earth occurred, 95% of the species on the earth disappeared, and the once prosperous trilobites and plate-footed horseshoe completely withdrew from the stage of history.
Permian – "Age of the Behemoths"
The tall sails of Theodonosaurus helped to control the temperature regulation
The tragic late-Permian mass extinction wiped out 95% of the planet's life
The "Pancontinent" Pangea was formed during the permian-early triasses
Triassic
From 252 to 201 million years ago, the world's various land masses spliced together to form a "pan-continent", and after the mass extinction, organisms began to recover, gymnosperms reached their peak, and in many areas, large dense forests were formed, and angiosperms appeared. Many new species of animals were born, with terrestrial vertebrates rapidly evolving to adapt to a wide variety of ecological environments, and ichthyosaurs returning to the ocean to become marine reptiles. Dinosaurs and oval primitive mammals appeared in the late Triassic period, the "Carny flood event" occurred, the "Pan-Continent" disintegrated, and the fourth mass extinction in the history of life on Earth occurred.
Reptiles and gymnosperms occupied the Triassic continent
Primitive crocodiles and early dinosaurs appeared
Ichthyosaurs returning to the ocean
Fossil sea lilies and living sea lilies
Global warming during the Carni flood event
The fourth mass extinction wiped out 80% of reptiles
Jurassic
Between 201 and 145 million years ago, the Pancontinent began to crack, the ocean area expanded, the temperature increased, and the oxygen and carbon dioxide content increased. Reptiles represented by dinosaurs reached their peak, and gymnosperms and progressive ferns formed a dense primary forest. Allosaurs on land, pterosaurs in the air, and ichthyosaurs in the water became the masters of the earth, and true mammals appeared. In the late Jurassic Period, some feathered dinosaurs flew into the sky and became the originators of birds, while mammals developed slowly.
Dinosaurs became the dominant force on earth, and the number of species gradually flourished
Tall gymnosperms entered their heyday, and angiosperms began to flourish
Dinosaurs grew feathers and began to fly into the sky
Cretaceous
From 145 to 0.66 million years ago, angiosperms bloomed in full bloom. The diversity of dinosaurs peaked. Birds developed a lot, and mammals evolved the placenta. At the end of the Cretaceous period, environmental upheavals and asteroid impacts on Earth occurred, the fifth mass extinction in the history of life on Earth, and 75% of the genera disappeared. Many creatures on land and in the water went extinct, and the age of dinosaurs ended.
Cretaceous dinosaurs evolved to the pinnacle and there are many species
The Tyrannosaurus Rex is confronting the Triceratops
The dragon succeeded the plesiosaur as the overlord of the ocean
Volcanic activity at the end of the Cretaceous period was intense
66 million years ago, an asteroid hit Earth and brought about a fifth mass extinction
Paleogene
Dating back to 66 million to 23 million years, it can be subdivided into the Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Africa, North and South America, and the Asian continent gradually drifted to today's position, and the Himalayas, Alps, and Andes began to rise. The global climate is relatively volatile, and large ice sheets have developed in the north and south poles. Forests no longer dominate the world, herbaceous plants begin to spread widely, and there are real grasslands on the earth. Angiosperms are more prosperous, and plant divisions are closer to modern times. Mammals that had been suppressed by dinosaurs for a long time began to develop explosively in the Paleogene, with a fine division of teeth, a sensitive sense of hearing and smell, good at maintaining body temperature, and a high survival rate of offspring.
Paleogene forest restoration map
The Paleocene 12-meter-long Titan Python is the largest snake in history
Next to it is a 1.5-meter round-shelled turtle
Paleogene Eocene biological features - dinosaur cranes
In the chase of small mammals
The Oligocene is a giant rhinoceros with a body length of 8 meters and a height of 9 meters
It is the largest terrestrial mammal ever built
Neogene
From 23 to 2.58 million years ago, the continental plates gradually formed their current positions, the Himalayas were further uplifted, the Alps were formed, and the mountains changed air circulation and weather patterns. With climate change, forests from coastlines to high latitudes are gradually giving way to grasslands, and the horses, deer and cattle that are good at running and nibbling grass stand out, and elephants become the largest land animals, while the dominant player in the ocean is the megalodon shark. At the end of the Neogene period, a small group of primates in the steppes of East Africa began to walk upright, and the ancestors of humans appeared.
Neogene restoration map
The lower jaw is a shovel-toothed elephant with a pair of lower incisors
It lived in the African savannah of the Miocene
Saber-toothed tigers in South America began to compete for supremacy over the crane
Megalodons became the overlords of the Neogene ocean
Australopithecus neocens
Quaternary
From about 2.58 million years ago to today, the cold glacial period and the interglacial period of warming climate and glacier retreat are constantly alternating, and dozens of glacial-interglacial rotations can be divided. In the last glacial period, which is only tens of thousands of years ago, almost all animal and plant species on the earth today have appeared, while giant beasts such as mammoths, woolly rhinoceros, saber-toothed tigers, saber-toothed elephants have almost all disappeared after the end of the last glacial period, and animals such as giant pandas and elk have survived the glacial period and interglacial periods like humans and survived to this day. African homo sapiens learned to make stone tools as early as 2.5 million years ago, and Homo erectus began to move out of Africa 1.8 million years ago, and then evolved into Homo sapiens.
Saber-toothed tigers remained powerful predators of the Pleistocene
The woolly rhinoceros is adapting to the cold climate of the ice age
Quaternary mammoth
The mammoth family is crossing dangerous volcanic hot springs
Humans began to build tribes — human civilization was emerging
Modern civilized humans are full of curiosity about the earth's past
Human beings have never stopped exploring the mysteries of the earth, and their curiosity about the history and future of the earth has driven generations of scholars to devote themselves to the exploration of earth science, but what we know is still the tip of the iceberg. But I hope that everyone can always maintain this curiosity, with a sense of awe of the earth, to discover and explore more secrets.
The weather is warmer, I hope that everyone will let go of their worries after work and plunge into nature to feel the embrace of the earth
Image credit: DeviantArt, Pinterest, Wikipedia
Editor: Wang Wanyu
Proofreaders: Zhang Tengfei, Jiang Xuejiao