SESI PENGAJIAN:

SEMESTER 1 SESI 2017/2018

PROGRAM:

SAINS SEKITARAN

KURSUS:

STAE1413 ASAS FIZIK BUMI

TUGASAN:

REPORT ZAMAN PREKAMBRIAN

NAMA DAN NO.MATRIK:

MUHAMMAD ADIB LUQMAN BIN ABDULLAH (A166119)

NORAISHAH BINTI ABDUL HARRIS (A164521)

MAI'IZZATI BINTI MOHD MESWAN (A163628)

NURUL ASYIKIN BINTI YA’AKOP (A166005)

PUNG YUN TING (A165873)

NAMA PENSYARAH:
 PROF. MADYA DR. ZULFAHMI BIN ALI RAHMAN

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.0 INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................3

2.0 PRECAMBRIAN LIFE...................................................................................................................3

3.0 PRECAMBRIAN TIME SCALE..............................................................................................5

4.0 PRECAMBRIAN ROCKS AND COMPOSITION.........................................................................7

5.0 IRON FORMATION.................................................................................................................8

6.0 PRECAMBRIAN ENVIRONMENT.......................................................................................10

6.1 PALEOGEOGRAPHY........................................................................................................10

6.2 PALEOCLIMATE...............................................................................................................10

7.0 CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................11

REFERENCES....................................................................................................................................12
1.0 INTRODUCTION

Precambrian Era means, "before the Cambrian period”. This old, but still common term
was originally used to refer to the whole period of earth's history before the formation of the
oldest rocks with recognizable fossils in them. The Precambrian covers almost 90% of the
entire history of the Earth. It has been divided into two eras, the Archean and the Proterozoic.
Precambrian Era comprises all of geologic time prior to 600 million years ago.

2.0 PRECAMBRIAN LIFE

Precambrian time covers the vast bulk of the Earth's history, starting with the planet's
creation about 4.5 billion years ago and ending with the emergence of complex, multicelled
life-forms almost four billion years later. The Precambrian is the earliest of the geologic ages,
which are marked by different layers of sedimentary rock. Laid down over millions of years,
these rock layers contain a permanent record of the Earth's past, including the fossilized
remains of plants and animals buried when the sediments were formed.

The Earth was more than 600 million years old when life began. The planet had cooled
down from its original molten state, developing a solid crust and oceans created from water
vapor in the atmosphere. Many scientists think these primordial seas gave rise to life, with
hot, mineral-rich volcanic vents acting as catalysts for chemical reactions across the surface
of tiny water bubbles, which led to the first cell membranes. Other bubbles are thought to
have formed self-replicating substances by attracting chemicals from around them. Over time
the two combined to produce energy-using, living cells.

The earliest living organisms were microscopic bacteria, which show up in the fossil
record as early as 3.4 billion years ago. As their numbers multiplied and supplies of their
chemical fuel were eaten up, bacteria sought out an alternative energy source. New varieties
began to harness the power of the sun through a biochemical process known as
photosynthesis, a move that would ultimately lead to simple plants and which opened the
planet up to animal life.
 Some three billion years ago, the Earth's atmosphere was virtually devoid of oxygen. At
about 2.4 billion years ago, oxygen was released from the seas as a by product of
photosynthesis by cyanobacteria. Levels of the gas gradually climbed, reaching about one
percent around two billion years ago. About 800 million years ago, oxygen levels reached
about 21 percent and began to breathe life into more complex organisms. The oxygen-rich
ozone layer was also established, shielding the Earth's surface from harmful solar radiation.

The first multicelled animals appeared in the fossil record almost 600 million years ago.
Known as the Ediacarans, these bizarre creatures bore little resemblance to modern life-
forms. They grew on the seabed and lacked any obvious heads, mouths, or digestive organs.
Fossils of the largest known among them, Dickinsonia, resemble a ribbed doormat. What
happened to the mysterious Ediacarans isn't clear. They could be the ancestors of later
animals, or they may have been completely erased by extinction.

The earliest multicelled animals that survived the Precambrian fall into three main
categories. The simplest of these soft-bodied creatures were sponges. Lacking organs or a
nervous system, they lived by drawing water through their bodies and filtering out food
particles. The cnidarians, which included sea anemones, corals, and jellyfish, had sac-like
bodies and a simple digestive system with a mouth but no anus. They caught food using
tentacles armed with microscopic stinging cells. The third group, the annelids, or segmented
flatworms, had fluid-filled body cavities and breathed through their skins.

It's thought the final stages of Precambrian time were marked by a prolonged global ice
age. This may have led to widespread extinctions, mirroring the bleak endings to the geologic
periods that followed.
3.0 PRECAMBRIAN TIME SCALE

During the eighteenth century geologists first began mapping the strata of the earth's
crust. In doing so they frequently found a basement complex of igneous and metamorphic
rocks beneath the lowest sedimentary layers. These were called the primitive or primary,
although the term Primary era later came to be applied to the oldest sedimentary stage (later
to be called the Paleozoic). In 1835 the English geologist Adam Sedgwick used the name
Cambrian for the oldest sedimentary strata. Thereafter the underlying rocks were term
Precambrian (before the Cambrian). During the twentieth century the term Cryptozoic, age
of hidden life was used to designate this period, whilst Phanerozoic age of obvious or
revealed life was used for those periods from which fossils of multicellular organisms are
known (example the Cambrian period to the present day). Although the latter term is still in
use, Cryptozoic pretty much disappeared in favor of the older and well established
Precambrian.

Figure 1

Figure 1 shows, Oasis in space: Earth history from the beginning - Time, Life, Evolution,
Earth, Million, and Eon, based on a diagram by Preston Cloud. (Cloud 1988), showing the
chemical and mineralogical evolution of the Earth's crust and atmosphere, along with impact
craters, glaciation events, and the evolution of life. Although life appears fairly early,
following a period of prebiotic chemical evolution, it is only towards the end of the
Precambrian that complex organisms arise.
 As shown here, the Precambrian includes by far the majority of geological time. Much of
this immensely long interval dominated almost entirely by microbial (and there mostly
simply bacterial) life. The fleeting periods shown as narrow coloured bars to the the far right
of the chart represent the familiar Phanerozoic geological timescale, characterised by life
above the microbial and algae mat stage

Originally the Precambrian was divided into a more recent Proterozoic (age of first life) a
preceding Archeozoic (first life) and an even earlier Azoic (lifeless) era. Archeozoic and
Azoic have been replaced by Archean (first, primary) and Hadean the latter term referring to
the hellish conditions of the very early Earth. Late, the term Priscoan was also used to refer to
the period where the geosphere was still forming a life had not yet come into being, this being
a synonym of Hadean.

These three eras, the Hadean, Archean and Proterozoic have recently been promoted to
the status of eons, although both the Geological Society of America and the International
Commission on Stratigraphy have chosen to ignore the Hadean. The Archean and Proterozoic
are both divided into various eras. More recently, there has also been a proposal (how
successfully this catches on remains to be seen, but we have adopted it here at Palaeos) that
the Hadean be itself divided into two, the Hadean proper (referring to earliest stages of the
development of the Earth) and the Chaotian, which refers to the formation of the solar system
as a whole.

4.0 PRECAMBRIAN ROCKS AND COMPOSITION

The Precambrian rocks of the Canyon tell us about the early formation and growth of the
North American continent. But we have to remember that none of the continental masses at
this time looked anything like they do today and our modern names for them are not really
appropriate. Geologists know this 'proto-North America' as Laurentia and it was mostly
comprised of the Canadian Shield, Greenland, Scotland and the ancient 'heartland' of
America.

On to this initial assembly of a few very ancient crustal 'nuclei' or 'islands', a series of
progressively younger belts of rocks (or tectonic terrains, as geologists prefer to call them)
have been welded by the large-scale geological processes of plate tectonics. The very oldest
rocks of Laurentia are not seen in the Canyon but in Labrador and southern Greenland. Other
nuclei are in the Lake Superior region and an extended belt from Wyoming north to the Great
Slave Province of Arctic Canada and on into northern Greenland. In addition, the
amalgamation of Laurentia was part of a more widespread global process, the assembly of the
supercontinent of Rodinia around 1.1 billion years ago, to which we will return.

For many years, the most ancient rocks on Earth were thought to be the Acasta gneisses
from the Great Slave Province of the Canadian Shield, dated at between 4.0 and 3.6 billion
years old. These gneisses (an old German mining term) are metamorphic rocks that have been
greatly altered by heat and pressure deep within the Earth's crust. They are derived from even
older rocks that were part of the early formation of crustal rocks. The largest, best-exposed
and most-studied area of early rocks are those of southwest Greenland. They include rocks,
dated at around 3.8-3.7 billion years old, that were originally volcanic and sedimentary and
deposited within water at the Earth's surface.

5.0 IRON FORMATION

Banded Iron formations (BIFs) occur in Proterozoic rocks, ranging in age from 1.8 to 2.5
billion years old. They are composed of alternating layers of iron-rich material that are
commonly magnetite and silica. Each layer is relatively thin, varying in thickness from a
millimeter or so up to several centimeters. It is theorized that the Earth's primitive atmosphere
had little or no free oxygen. In addition, Proterozoic rocks exposed at the surface had a high
level of iron, which was released at the surface upon weathering. Since there wasn't any
oxygen to combine with it at the surface, the iron entered the ocean as iron ions. At the same
time, primitive photosynthetic blue or green algae was beginning to proliferate in the near
surface waters. As the algae would produce oxygen as a waste product of photosynthesis, the
free oxygen would combine with the iron ions to form magnetite an iron oxide. This cleansed
the algae's environment.

As the biomass expanded beyond the capacity for the available iron to neutralize the
waste, the oxygen content of the sea water rose to toxic levels. This eventually resulted in
large-scale extinction of the algae population, and led to the accumulation of an iron poor
layer of silica on the sea floor. As time passed and algae populations re-established
themselves, a new iron-rich layer began to accumulate. Unfortunately, the algae were of
relatively low intelligence and were unable to learn from their past so they would again
proliferate beyond the capacity of the iron ions to clean up their waste products, and the cycle
would repeat. This went on for approximately 800,000,000 years.

Banded iron-formations occur in the Precambrian geologic record over a wide time span.
The stratigraphic sequences in which BIFs occur are highly variable. Most Archean iron-
formations are part of greenstone belts that have been deformed, metamorphosed, and
dismembered. This makes reconstruction of the basinal setting of such BIFs very difficult.
Most Archean iron-formations show fine laminations and/or microbanding.

The mineralogy of the least metamorphosed BIFs consists of combinations of the

following minerals: chert, magnetite, hematite, carbonates (most commonly siderite and
members of the dolomite-ankerite series), greenalite, stilpnomelane, and riebeckite, and
locally pyrite. Minnesotaite is a common, very low-grade metamorphic reaction product. The
pH stability fields of the above minerals indicate anoxic conditions for the original
depositional environment.

The common fine lamination as well as the lack of detrital components in most BIFs
suggest that such are the result of deposition, below wave base, in the deeper parts of ocean
basins. Those with granular textures are regarded as the result of deposition in shallow water,
platformal areas. Carbon isotope data suggest that for a long period of time (from Archean to
Early Proterozoic) the ocean basins were stratified as well as organic carbon content. In
Middle Proterozoic time (when granular BIFs appear) this stratification diminishes and is
lost.

The Neoproterozoic BIFs occur in stratigraphic sequences with glaciomarine deposits.

These BIFs are the result of anoxic conditions that resulted from the stagnation in the oceans
beneath a near-global ice cover, referred to as “Snowball Earth.” All of the most “primary”
mineral assemblages appear to be the result of chemical precipitation under anoxic
conditions. There are no data to support that BIF precipitation was linked directly to
microbial activity. The relative abundance of BIF throughout the Precambrian record is
correlated with a possible curve for the evolution of the oxygen content in the Precambrian
atmosphere.
6.0 PRECAMBRIAN ENVIRONMENT

Several rock types yield information on the range of environments that may have existed
during Precambrian time. Evolution of the atmosphere is recorded by banded-iron formations
(BIFs) provide clues to the climatic patterns that occurred during Precambrian glaciations.

6.1 PALEOGEOGRAPHY
Most important factors controlling the nature of sediments deposited is continental drift.
This follows from the fact that the continents are distributed at different latitudes, and
latitudinal position affects the temperature of oceanic waters along continental margins (the
combined area of the continental shelf and continental slope); in short, sedimentary
deposition is climatically sensitive.

6.2 PALEOCLIMATE

During the long course of Precambrian time, the climatic conditions of the Earth changed
considerably. Earth almost certainly possessed a reducing atmosphere before 2.5 billion years
ago. The Sun’s radiation produced organic compounds from reducing gases—methane (CH4)
and ammonia (NH3). The minerals uraninite (UO2) and pyrite (FeS2) are easily destroyed in
an oxidizing atmosphere; confirmation of a reducing atmosphere is provided by unoxidized
grains of these minerals in 3.0-billion-year-old sediments. However, the presence of many
types of filamentous microfossils dated to 3.45 billion years ago in the cherts of the Pilbara
region suggests that photosynthesis had begun to release oxygen into the atmosphere by that
time. The presence of fossil molecules in the cell walls of 2.5-billion year-old blue-green
algae (cyanobacteria) establishes the existence of rare oxygen-producing organisms by that
period.

A major factor controlling the climate during the Precambrian was the tectonic
arrangement of continents. At times of supercontinent formation, the total number of
volcanoes was limited; there were few island arcs and the overall length of oceanic spreading
ridges was relatively short. This relative shortage of volcanoes resulted in low emissions of
the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2). This contributed to low surface temperatures and
extensive glaciations. In contrast, at times of continental breakup, which led to maximum
rates of seafloor spreading and subduction, there were high emissions of CO2 from numerous
volcanoes in oceanic ridges and island arcs. The atmospheric greenhouse effect was
enhanced, warming Earth’s surface, and glaciation was absent. These latter conditions also
applied to the Archean Eon prior to the formation of continents.

7.0 CONCLUSION

There is no record of tectonic activity of any sort at the time corresponding to the
Archean-Proterozoic boundary about 2.5 billion years ago. This probably means that a
supercontinent had been created by the amalgamation of innumerable smaller continental
blocks and island arcs. Accordingly, this was a period of tectonic stability that may have been
comparable to the Permian-Triassic when the supercontinent of Pangea existed. As a
consequence, it is the chronometric time scale that is used to subdivide Precambrian time and
to correlate rocks from region to region and from continent to continent.
REFERENCES
Hansen, Bent. “History of Earth's Climate 1. - Precambrian.” Precambrian - History of Earth's
Climate, www.dandebat.dk/eng-klima1.htm.

Klein, Cornelis. “Some Precambrian Banded Iron-Formations (BIFs) from around the World:
Their Age, Geologic Setting, Mineralogy, Metamorphism, Geochemistry, and Origins.”
American Mineralogist, GeoScienceWorld, 1 Oct. 2005

“Precambrian.” World of Earth Science, Encyclopedia.com, www.encyclopedia.com/earth-

and-environment/geology-and-oceanography/geology-and-oceanography/precambrian-
era.

Windley, Brian Frederick. “Precambrian Time.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia

Britannica, Inc., 26 Jan. 2016,
www.britannica.com/science/Precambrian-time/Precambrian-geology