CHRISTIAN JAY B.

RAMOS BSCE – 1D
GEOLOGY FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS 02/13/2023

REACTION PAPER: THE HISTORY OF EARTH – HOW OUR PLANET FORMED by

WISDOM LAND

The video “Birth of the Earth” by Naked Science is an informative video

documentary focusing on how our world was made several billion years ago. Instead of

showing scientists and other experts in revealing the origin of our planet, the makers of

the video opted to make an animated, digitally made movie to visualize the events that

happened. This approach truly engaged the viewers into watching the documentary

because the makers of the video made the viewers feel like they were there when all

those significant events were happening.

The Earth’s journey starts almost 5 billion years ago when no signs of earth just

yet. There is only the sun, surrounded by dust and rocks, and from this rubble, the Earth

will be formed in a matter of millions of years. After some time, the gravity pulls these tiny

rocks together, forming a huge cluster of rocks and dust. It is quite astonishing to think

that our planet which is now suitable for life is once just a huge ball of very hot dust and

rocks that is floating in the cosmos, with no clear purpose. By this time, Earth is just made

up of molten rocks, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and there is no air to breathe, besides the

fact that this earth is still very hot with over a whopping 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. We’ll

be incinerated upon contact.

 Then, a young planet called “Theia” which is the size of Mars, travelled 10 miles

per second – 20 times faster than a bullet – towards the Earth. As it approaches the Earth,

its gravity distorted the Earth’s surface.

Over a thousand of years, gravity turns the rubble into a ring of red-hot dusts and

rocks that circles the Earth. From this ring, a ball over two thousand miles wide was

formed. Moon was formed, but it is unlike the Moon that we can see today since it is much

closer than what we can see now. It is true that this view will be scenic and stunning,

especially for those who love watching the night sky, but there is a great drawback in

having a view like this. Since the Moon dictates the tides, ocean waves during the time

that the Moon was much closer to the Earth were extremely violent that no man could

survive if ever thrown in the ocean with this situation.

Theia’s collision with the Earth caused it to spin so fast that it only took 3 hours for the

sun to rise and set in a day. One day only lasted for 6 hours. Winds are faster due to

earth’s rapid rotation, creating hurricanes, storms, and tornadoes that no human and

other living things could survive. But over the years, moon slowly drifted away from the

Earth until it got to a position that we observe today.

Fast-forward to 3.9 billion years ago, Earth was bombarded with meteors. Inside

these are crystals that looked like grains of salt, and inside these crystals are droplets of

water. These deadly missiles could contain the vital ingredient that will allow life to exist

on Earth. Despite having minute amount of water inside these meteors, they bombarded

the Earth for 20 million years creating pools of water, that later on created the vast oceans,

seas, lakes, glaciers, and even ice that we have today. All the Earth’s water now is older

than all of the living things that have thrived in the planet.
 Aside from water, the meteors that continuously pounded the Earth also contained

carbon and primitive proteins that sank at the deepest parts of the ocean. The ocean

became rich with nutrients and other ingredients that will eventually pave the way for life

to exist.

Single-celled bacteria emerged from this nutrient-rich ocean floors, which are

considered as the earliest forms of life on Earth, despite the lack of complexity in their

systems. These bacterial populations in the ocean produced oxygen to the water through

a process called photosynthesis. The ocean that is once filled with iron that gives it its

greenish tinge, will eventually turn into shades of blue. Once the oxygen level rise in the

ocean, the contact between the oxygen and iron in the water created rust that would later

settle down in the ocean floor, creating iron-filled rocks.

Earth also has its own activities inside aside from those that happens on the

surface. The rocks beneath the Earth are constantly moving. The core’s searing heat

caused the underlying rocks to move, resulting to oceans widening and the creation of

islands and mountain ranges on land. Due to these tectonic activities, hotspots were

formed, resulting to the emergence of volcanoes discharging lava that contains carbon

dioxide. However, instead of going to the atmosphere, most of these carbon dioxide were

trapped by exposed rocks, causing the Earth’s atmosphere to have insufficient amount of

greenhouse gases that will trap the Sun’s heat. With this, the Earth entered the global ice

age. This event continued for millions of years, but the constant eruption of volcanoes

made the surface gain more greenhouse gases that will preserve the heat in the planet.

The Earth eventually warmed up again. This cycle continued for the next millions of years

to come.
 With this cycle, Earth also undergone numerous massive extinctions that will

shape the life today. Organisms in the early days mostly thrived in the oceans to evade

the lethal effects of Sun’s radiation. As the planet cooled down through time, the

descendants of these organisms began to step foot and flourish on land. From this,

evolution started to occur that will later dictate which organisms are fit to survive in the

ever-changing conditions of the planet.

The way these information were presented in the video nearly made me believe

that these things happened in the distant past. But since they are just theories of what

may have transpired during the early days of the Earth, there is no guarantee that they

are true. After all, theories are made to give us an idea on the possible events and

scenarios and not the whole truth. Nevertheless, the theories presented in the video are

most widely accepted and the evidence that they have for these theories are strong

enough to be regarded as a steppingstone in knowing the truth about the Earth’s origin.

Looking back to the Earth billions of years ago, who would have thought that these

huge fuming ball of dust and rock will be able to support life in the future? It was just a

barren world travelling aimlessly around the Sun and through space, then all of a sudden,

it met all of those disastrous yet significantly important events that will later shape the

world that we live in today. True enough, the things that made life possible to exist in

these huge chasm are not even from this planet, yet these things like water and proteins

found their way into the Earth, making it possible for us to exist.