The History of

the Earth
Prof . K.S.Rao
 Core
Concepts

You will
inherit
Earth.
How is science
done?
#1. Earth scientists use
repeatable observations
and testable ideas to
understand and explain
our planet. Any other
method is based on
faith.
 How old is Earth?

#2. Earth is 4.6 billion years old.

What are the characteristics of Earths surface?

#3. Earths surface is a complex system of

interacting rock, water, air, and life.
How does Earth behave?

#4. Earth is continuously changing.

What is special about Earth?

#5. Earth is the water planet.

What is life's role on Earth?

#6. Life evolves on a

dynamic Earth and
continuously modifies Earth.
What is the human relationship to Earth?
#7. Humans depend on Earth for resources.
 What are natural hazards?

#8. Natural hazards pose risks to humans.

What is the human impact on Earth?

#9. Humans significantly alter Earth.

 Humankind is faced with global challenges.
How will we manage them?
Peak oil We probably wont run out of
oil. But it is likely to get very
expensive.
Global warming How quickly will
warming proceed and what are the
potential consequences?
Soil erosion It is estimated that 65% of
Earths soil is degraded by erosion,
desertification, and salinization.
Fresh water Around the world drought,
pollution, and overuse threaten water
resources.
Economic minerals Mineral resources
are finite and increased demand can
make some of them unaffordable.
Can you think of other global challenges?
The Universe
The Milky Way
Galaxy, one of
billions of other
galaxies in the
universe,
contains about
400 billion stars
and countless
other objects.

Why is it called
the Milky Way?
Welcome to our Solar System, how well
do we know our neighbors?
 The Solar System

8 classical planets
5 dwarf planets
240 known satellites (moons)
Millions of comets and asteroids
Countless particles; and interplanetary space.

Earth, the Sun, and other objects in the Solar System originated at
the same time from the same source and have evolved in varying
ways since then.
Mercury
Vertical axis (no seasons)
Probable molten (Fe) core
Silicate (SiO2) shell
Atmosphere created by solar
wind
227oC to -137oC
Venus
Axis spin opposite to other
planets (upside down?)
Is core liquid or solid? -
Unknown
Active volcanism? - Probably
Atmosphere 96.5% (CO2)
477oC runaway Greenhouse
Effect
Mars
Iron core, partially liquid
Silicate (SiO2) mantle and crust
Active volcanism? - Probably
Atmosphere 95.3% (CO2)
Past flooding and fluvial
erosion of surface
Water has flowed in the past. But is now locked up as
ice in the ground and as polar ice caps. Drainage
features due to short-lived melting events
 Between Mars and
Jupiter lies the Main
Asteroid Belt

There are millions of

asteroids; ranging from
icy to rocky; and several
different groups.

Among the oldest

materials in the Solar
System
MERCURY VENUS EARTH MARS

Terrestrial planets are small and rocky, with thin atmospheres,

silicate and metallic shells.

O, Fe, Si, Mg, Ca, K, Na, Al

Jupiter's Great
Red Spot - A
hurricane the size
of Earth lasting
several centuries

Does Jupiter have

a hard surface?

Lack of hard
surface may allow
for different winds
at different speeds
hence, banding

90% Hydrogen,
10% Helium
Saturn: 9 rings of rock
and ice particles, 10,000
km wide and 200 km
thick
Outer layer of frozen
ammonia (NH3)
96% Hydrogen, 3.35%
Helium
62 moons
Uranus: axis tilted completely
on its side
82.5% Hydrogen, 15.2%
Helium, 2.3% Methane (CH4)
Neptune: highest winds in
Solar system, 2000 km/hr
80% Hydrogen, 18.5%
Helium, 1.5% Methane (CH4)
Neptune clouds
 The internal structure of
Neptune:

1. Upper atmosphere, top

clouds

2. Atmosphere consisting of
hydrogen, helium and
methane gas

3. Mantle consisting of
water, ammonia and
methane ices

4. Core consisting of rock

and ice
 Gas Giants are massive planets with thick
atmospheres.
He, H, CO2, H2O, N2, CO, NH3, CH4

Neptune

Jupiter
Uranus

Saturn
 Direction of travel Comets are thought to
originate from regions of icy,
mineral-rich bodies that
Direction to Sun lie beyond the orbit of
Neptune.
What does a comet look
like? They are dirty
snowballs.

Comet Tempel, 19
seconds before impact
Edgeworth-Kuiper belt
and
Oort Cloud
 Dwarf Planet
an object in the Solar System that orbits the Sun and is not a
satellite of a planet or other celestial body. It must be spherical (or nearly so)
in shape.
 Origin of the Universe
The universe began about 14.4
billion years ago
The Big Bang Theory states that, in
the beginning, the universe was all in
one place
All of its matter and energy were
squished into an infinitely small
point, a singularity
Then it exploded
 Origin of the Universe

The tremendous amount of material

blown out by the explosion
eventually formed the stars and
galaxies
After about 10 billion years, our solar
system began to form
 Birth of the Solar System
We know how the Earth and Solar System are today and this
allows us to work backwards and determine how the Earth and
Solar System were formed
Plus we can out into the universe for clues on how stars and
planets are currently being formed
 Nebular Hypothesis
In cosmogony, the Nebular Hypothesis is the currently
accepted argument about how a Solar System can form
 Nebular Hypothesis
A large gas cloud (nebula) begins to condense
Most of the mass is in the center, there is turbulence in
the outer parts
 Nebular Hypothesis

The turbulent
eddies collect
matter measuring
meters across
Small chunks grow
and collide,
eventually
becoming large
aggregates of gas
and solid chunks
 Nebular Hypothesis
Pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope show newborn stars emerging from dense,
compact pockets of interstellar gas called evaporating gaseous globules
 Nebular Hypothesis
Gravitational attraction causes the mass of gas and dust to slowly
contract and it begins to rotate
The dust and matter slowly falls towards the center
Proto-star
Birth of the Solar System
 Protoplanets
Gravitational forces allow the inner planets to accrue and
compact solid matter (including light and heavy atoms)
Solar radiation blew gases (primarily hydrogen, helium)
away from inner planets
These gases were collected and condensed into the gas
giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune)
Beyond Neptune, ice and frozen gases form Pluto, Sedna
and the Kuiper Belt Objects
Left-over debris form comets and asteroids
Birth of the Solar System
Solar Nebula
Hypothesis
The beginning of the
Solar System 6.9 billion
years ago
nebula formation

An ancestral star
ended its life: Red Giant
Explosion - Nebula
Formation of
a nebula
Nebula Collapse and Condensation

Rotation started by shockwaves

from a nearby explosion (?)

Because the solar nebula

was rotating, it contracted
into a disc, and the planets
formed with orbits lying in
nearly the same plane.
Planetesimal
accretion - ~5 to
4.6 billion yrs ago
When the Solar wind turned
on, volatiles were expelled
from inner Solar System
 Terrestrial Planets

Gas Giants
 Our Sun: A Massive Hydrogen Bomb held together by gravity

Solar core is site of nuclear

fusion.
H is converted to He, which
has less mass.
Mass differential is expelled
as energy (light and heat).
The Sun is getting lighter
through time.
Enough fuel to last another 4
to 5 billion years.
Earths Geomagnetic Field
Blown into a streamlined shape by the Solar Wind.
 In time EARTHS interior accumulated
heat
New atmosphere created by volcanic
outgassing and delivery of gases and Hadean Era
water by ice-covered comets.
 Early Earth

Near Moon Earliest phase of

Earth heating
 Bombardment From Space
For the first half billion years of its existence, the surface of
the Earth was repeatedly pulverized by asteroids and
comets of all sizes
One of these collisions formed the Moon
 Formation of the Moon
The Giant Impact Hypothesis predicts
that around 50 million years after the
initial creation of Earth, a planet
about the size of Mars collided with
Earth
This idea was first proposed about 30
years ago, but it took calculations by
modern high-speed computers to
prove the feasibility
 Formation of the Moon
This collision had to be very spectacular!
A considerable amount of material was blown off into space, but most fell back
onto the Earth
 Formation of the Moon

Part of the material from the collision remained in orbit around the Earth
By the process collision and accretion, this orbiting material coalesced into the
Moon
The early Moon orbited very close to the Earth
 The Early Earth Heats Up
Three major factors that caused heating and melting in the early Earths interior:

1. Collisions (Transfer of
kinetic energy into heat)
2. Compression
3. Radioactivity of elements
(e.g. uranium, potassium,
or thorium)
 The Evolving Atmosphere
For the next several hundred million years, volcanic out-gassing began to create a thicker
atmosphere composed of a wide variety of gases
The gases that were released were probably similar to those created by modern volcanic
eruptions
 The Evolving Atmosphere

These would include:

Water vapor (H2O)
Sulfur dioxide (SO2)
Hydrogen sulfide (H2S)
Carbon dioxide (CO2)
Carbon Monoxide (CO)
Ammonia (NH3)
Methane (CH4)

Note that oxygen (O2) gas is not created by volcanic eruptions

 Creating the Oceans
It is hypothesized that water vapor escaping from the interior of the
Earth via countless volcanic eruptions created the oceans (this took
hundreds of millions of years)
Creating the Oceans

Astronomers also
hypothesize that comets
impacting the Earth were
a major source of water
that contributed to
creation of the oceans
Remember, that comets
are best described as
dirty ice balls
 The Age of the Earth
Earth is ~ 4,570,000,000 years old
Meteorites give us access to debris left over from the formation of the
solar system
We can date meteorites using radioactive isotopes and their decay
products
 Radioactive elements

Not all elements are radioactive. Those that

are and are the most useful for geologic dating
are:

U-238 Half-life = 4.5 By

K-40 Half-life = 1.25 By
C-14 Half-life = 5.73 years

Also, Sm-147, Rb 87, Th-232, U-235

 U-238 DECAY
Often elements decay according to a complex decay
scheme in which a host of intermediate products,
many themselves radioactive, are produced.

U-238 is such an element and given its importance to

geologic dating, it is worthwhile to examine it decay
scheme.

Keep in mind that U-238 has a half-life approximately

equal to the age of the Earth, 4.5 B y.
Half-life for decay from U-238 all the way
Fig. 5.3
to Pb-206 is 4.5 b.y. (billion years).

U-238 Decay Series

Decay rates for intermediate daughter

products range from <1 sec (polonium)
to 1,622 years (radium 226).
 Fig. 5.4

Schematic diagram showing decay of radioactive parent isotope (e.g. U-238)

to a daughter (e.g. Pb-206). The original isotope was sealed in a mineral
grain at time of crystallization. Note changing ratio of parent/daughter after
2 half-lives. Note that to get an estimate of the geologicc age, you need the
ratio of the parent isotope to the daughter isotope, e.g. two measurements.
 Fig. 5.5

Simple arithmetic plot of a universal isotopic decay curve. After 1 half-life 50% of parent
isotope remains; after 2 half-lives, 25% remains.

What happens if the vertical axis is changed from linear to logarithmic?

 BLOCKING TEMPERATURES

The Blocking Temperature is an important concept; it refers

to processes that result in a resetting of the atomic clocks in
a rock.

Essentially, it is possible to heat igneous and metamorphic

rocks to high enough temperatures that they no longer
behave as closed systems. That is some of the daughter
products can leak out of the primary mineral, giving an
erroneous parent/daughter ratio and hence a wrong age.

(Age for what? How could the age be interpreted in a rock in

which the blocking temperature has been reached?)
 Fig. 5.7
Use of daughter lead
isotopes for dating. The
ratios of 3 radiogenic lead
isotopes to non-
radiogenic lead-204 all
change but at different
rates.

These ratios can also be

used to date a rock or
mineral.
Constant generation of C-14
Fig. 5.8
in the upper atmosphere by
cosmic particle bombardment
of N (nitrogen).

Nitrogen (N-15) emits a

proton and becomes C-14.
This is radioactive with a half-
life of about 5,730 years.

Plants and animals ingest this

radioactive C-14 while they
are alive. When they die, the
ingestion stops, and the
radioactive C-14 clock begins
to count down.
Fission tracks in an
apatite crystal.
Fig. 5.9
They are produced when
an atom of U-238
disintegrates emitting an
alpha particle, a Helium
nucleus (He-4). This
massive atomic particle
causes massive structural
damage in the crystal that
can be revealed by
etching.

The number of tracks in a

given area is proportional
to the age of the mineral.

(Why not just use the U-

238 to Pb-206 method
directly in such cases?)
 Fig. 5.10

Metamorphic redistribution of daughter isotopes.

1. Mineral crystallizes 1000 mya (1 billion yrs ago)

2. After 500 my (million yrs) some parent isotopes have decayed.
3. 480 mya (million yrs ago) metamorphic event redistributes daughter atoms out of
crystal into adjacent rock
4. Dating of the mineral would now yield the age of the metamorphic event
5. But a whole rock age would provide the original age of the rock/mineral (1000 mya).
Geologic Time
 Thank you for attention
24-07-17