ISRO’s Space Science and Technology Awareness Training (START-2024)

Lecture on Earth and its Evolution, Dated 26 April 2024 (On-line)

EARTH AND ITS EVOLUTION

LECTURE NOTES

Dr. P. Senthil Kumar

CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad
senthil@ngri.res.in

1. Earth Formation

Evolution of earth starts from the birth of the planet and continues to present and in the future. In
the inner solar system, earth is the largest planet and is also the most active planet. The planetary
geologic activity causes changes to both interior and surface of the planet. The smaller planets such
as Mars, Mercury and even the Moon cooled rapidly and became inactive long ago. Therefore, the
smaller bodies preserved the old history, while the large planets lost it. Hence, for understanding
earth’s evolution, we need to rely on geologic records from other smaller terrestrial planets as well.
Earth is a third planet from the sun and is positioned in a habitable zone, such that liquid water and
suitable atmosphere are developed for supporting life. Earth originated from small size planetesimals,
which are building blocks of planets. Accretion of smaller planetesimals led to the growth of larger
planetary embryo that reached the maximum size. At this stage, it is called proto-earth. The planet
was very hot due to impact energy and radiogenic heat, which led to melting of the planet. Planetary
differentiation occurred at this stage. The planet was partitioned into core, mantle and crust. The iron
and nickel settled in the core. The remaining silicate materials made-up the mantle and crust. All these
happened within a few million years. Subsequently, the proto earth was bombarded by a small planet.
This impact ejected a large quantity of debris from earth and it formed a debris disc around. It
underwent subsequent evolution in which some portion of debris accreted back to earth, while those
dispersed beyond the earth’s gravity influence (Roche limit), they formed the Moon.

2. Four Spheres of Earth

Earth formed four spheres: geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere. The geosphere
produced all remaining three spheres and its evolution ultimately affects all of them. The geosphere
evolution took place in the interior of the planet, which can be divided into crust, upper and lower
mantle, and outer and inner core, in which the outer core is fluid. The lithosphere marks the outmost
rigid shell of the planet, and it is broken into a number of plates that move on top of the ductile
asthenosphere. Geophysics gives the inner structure of earth, where sound speed shows marked
increase with depth, and temperature reaches up to 6000° C at the inner core. We understand the
earth’s evolution from the rock records. How did earth form and evolve to its present state? The pile
of rocks with ages ranging from the time of origin of earth to present day gives clues to the earth’s
evolution. The rock pile contains igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks and metamorphic rocks. Origin of
these rocks provides information about earth processes and their ages tell us about the timing of
processes. Geologists understand the rock record and propose a model for origin of earth. To build
the geological history of earth, we need a time scale that starts from 4500 million years ago to the
present. The time scale is divided into four eons, such as Hadean which spans 4500-4000 Ma, Archaean
ranging from 4000 to 2500 Ma, Proterozoic from 2500 to 541 Ma, and the remaining is grouped under
Phanerozoic. The other planets also have similar timescales, for example, the Noachian and pre-
Noachian of Mars, Pre-Nectarian, periods are equivalent to Hadean earth. The planetary time scales
are under improvement. The geological map of earth shows the distribution of rocks on earth. The
continents hold older rock records spanning from Archaean to Phanerozoic, while the ocean floor is
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ISRO’s Space Science and Technology Awareness Training (START-2024)
Lecture on Earth and its Evolution, Dated 26 April 2024 (On-line)

young, and it contains rocks belong to the last 100 million years. As I said earlier, the Hadean rock
record is not yet found on earth. The earth crust is broken into a number of plates. These plates move
past each other. Some break and move away from each other – these are known as divergent
boundary and mid-oceanic ridge is an example. In some places, the oceanic plate collides onto
continental plate and form an arc-like landmass, known as island arc. Continent-continent collision
also occurred across the Himalaya.

3. Hadean Earth

Let us now understand the Hadean earth history. Some of the oldest rocks exposed in northwestern
Canada gave an age of 4.03 billion years. It is the oldest known rocks on earth so far. We don’t know
anything older than this thus far. However, the geologists discovered even more older minerals from
earth. Rocks are aggregate of minerals in which some minerals form much earlier than the bulk rock.
A group of scientists found an outcrop of sedimentary rocks in western Australia and separated the
zircon minerals from them. These zircon minerals are very resistant to weathering so that they
preserve the formation age of these minerals very intact. The zircon minerals separated from these
rocks provided some of the oldest ages on earth. The ages of zircon grains are found to vary between
4.4 to 4.1 billion years. Some minerals showed signature shock indicating that they were exposed to
shock metamorphism. 4 billion years old zircon minerals were also found in the rock records of the
south African continent. Interestingly, some small magnetic minerals were found inside the dated
zircon grains. These magnetic materials recorded the magnetic field of earth that existed at that time.
These findings suggest that the earth has had an active magnetic field during Hadean eon. This is an
important finding that supports an idea that if any past life had existed on earth, it should have been
protected by the magnetosphere. Further paleo-magnetic research showed that the rocks belonging
to the entire geologic history recorded magnetic fields in them, and therefore, the earth’s magnetic
field should have been existed in earth from Hadean to the present. Therefore, it is evident that the
earth’s magnetosphere should have protected life on earth throughout its history. On other hand,
Mars also has had a magnetic field up to 4.1 billion years but it died down later. Some of the oldest
volcanic rocks also preserved the magnetic field, suggesting that volcanism happened during early
Mars, equivalent to Hadean on earth.

Because earth missed its Hadean rock record, we read it from the Moon and Mars, as these are our
neighbouring bodies. The records on the Moon indicates that earth may have had similar magma
ocean in the beginning. Both Mars and Moon suggests that earth was also bombarded by many
asteroids and comets during Hadean and Archaean, as in the case of late heavy bombardment.
Hafnium isotopes in the zircon minerals from the Moon suggests that crystallization in the magma
ocean began around 4.48 Ga. The crystallization in magma ocean led to settling of olivine and
pyroxene minerals on the bottom, while the lighter plagioclase minerals floated and became the lunar
crust. Similar processes may have happened on earth also. The age data suggests that the magma
ocean crystallization came to an end at ~4.3 Ga. It is unknown if earth also has had similar history of
200 million years of formation history. We don’t know if earth crust was anorthositic, but some
suggests that it could have been more mafic. The Moon suffered heavy bombardment of asteroids
and comets around 4 to 3.7 Ga, believed to be due to lateral migration of giant planets. This is known
as late heavy bombardment. The images returned from Mercury suggested that similar bombardment
also occurred on Mercury. Mars also suffered by heavy bombardment. Because these were inner solar
system processes, Earth may have had bombarded by similar population of projectiles. Therefore,
Marchie and others provided a model for heavy bombardment on earth that suggests that the entire
surface was covered by impact materials.

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Lecture on Earth and its Evolution, Dated 26 April 2024 (On-line)

4. Archaean Earth

Now, let us understand Archaean earth’s history spanning from 4 to 2.5 billion years. The red patches
are Archean provinces that host rocks belonging to that eon. Impacts also continued in the Archaean
eon. Impact records on earth have 200 known craters, of these some of them may have formed in the
Archaean time. Three impact craters were also found in India. These are Lonar, Ramgarh and Dhala
craters. The impact crater record shows that some events occurred in the Archean eon, but most were
removed by earth processes. Only the young craters formed in the last one billion years are preserved.
Geological record shows that impact crater materials were deposited on earth around 3.5 Ga, in
western Australia. The impact spherules materials were recovered from the sedimentary rocks. During
the Archaean eon, continents were growing in size and thickness. A large amount of magma was added
to the crust. Granites were the most abundant rock types formed at the end of Archean eon.
Volcanism also occurred on earth’s surface. During the same time, Mercury also experienced a wide-
spread volcanism. Long-lived volcanism also occurred on the Moon, as in the case of Archaean earth.
It should have created a local atmosphere at that time. Long-lived volcanism also occurred on Mars,
where mantle plumes played major roles. Tharsis is the only place in the solar system, where
volcanism remained active for more than 4 billion years!

Vaalbara may be the first supercontinent formed on earth in Archean. Scientists believe that portions
of Australia and those of South Africa were together. The crust in India also host rocks belonging to
the Archean era. The rocks in south and eastern India are good examples. These rocks provided
important insights into how our Indian crust was formed and evolved. Here is an example of
sedimentary rocks formed during Archean. These rocks suggest that ocean and rivers existed and
flowed during Archaean. Satellite images returned from Mars showed abundant examples of rivers
(known as valley networks) on Mars but these are dry now. These were formed about ~3.6 billion
years ago on Mars. Mars was like earth during this time. Evidences also suggest that lakes and deltas
and ocean were formed on Mars around 3.8 Ga. Possibly, earth may have had some of them. During
Archaean, oxygen content in the atmosphere was too low. CO2 and methane were more abundant, so
the Archaean earth was warm. Organic materials and microbial life existed on Earth. Earth produced
a large quantity of iron deposits inside the ocean. The iron produced in the ocean were precipitated
on the ocean floor by consuming oxygen generated by the cynobacteria population. The Archaean era
ended with a huge amount of granite magmatism by the influence of plate tectonics. In south India, a
large quantity of granites was produced in the crust.

5. Proterozoic Earth

During Proterozoic eon, microbial blooms occurred. The great oxidation event occurred at around 2.3
Ga. Rock record show abundant evidences for fossil record of microbial life in Proterozoic. This was
the middle age of Earth! Earth witnessed four major continental cycles. Four of them were occurred
in Proterozoic. Here is an example of Columbia supercontinent that occurred between 2000 and 1500
million years ago. Plate tectonics played a major role in the formation and breakup of supercontinents.
Later Rodina supercontinent was formed from the breakup of Columbia. Rodina was assembled
around 1000-800 Ma, but subsequently it split around 700 Ma. It is believed that giant superplume
was responsible for the break-up. Subsequently, Rodina break-up ended up in the formation of
Gondwana supercontinent through different stages. During this time, earth passed through snowball
condition. Between 660 and 630 Ma, the entire globe was likely covered by ice. Though some scientists
debate, most earth was covered by ice. There was a sudden drop in CO2 and CH4 content in the

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Lecture on Earth and its Evolution, Dated 26 April 2024 (On-line)

atmosphere. May be supply of these gases were stopped, and the gases were absorbed by the ocean.
Sun may have dimmed. The reasons for snowball are still poorly understood.

6. Phanerozoic Earth

Marine and continental life was bloomed during Phanerozoic. Trilobites were the first invertebrates
to form on ocean. Fishes, tortoises, and sharks were formed. On land, plants, birds, dinosaur were
formed. During Phanerozoic time, many extinctions events also occurred, due to which many animals
and planets were killed. These occurred several times, but more notable ones are P-T and K-T
boundary extinctions, occurred around 250 Ma and 65 Ma, respectively. A 170 km diameter impact
crater (Chicxulub crater) was formed around 65 million years ago, which is believed to have caused
mass extinctions on Earth. This impact deformed entire earth crust at the impact site. The next
important event on earth was Gondwana supercontinent in which all continents were assembled
around Antarctica. Life was blossoming. The Gondwana supercontinent broke-up around 200 Ma.
Gondwana break-up led to the formation of Pangea supercontinent. This was the last major
supercontinent on earth. Further break-up of Pangea led to the present set-up of continents. The
northward drift of Indian sub-continent and collision onto the Eurasia plate happened. The Himalaya
was finally assembled to its present state. During the collision, the Indian plate went down beneath
the Eurasia plate. At present, earth has 7 major plates and 15 minor plates and several minor plates.
Thousands of earthquakes occurred along the plate boundaries during 1963-1998 (it continues to
today in similar rates). The earthquakes themselves define the plate boundaries, but there are fewer
intra-plate earthquakes as well. Plate boundary earthquakes are larger in magnitudes. Thousands of
earthquakes occurred in India as well, but most of them are concentrated along the Himalaya. The
peninsular India experienced fewer earthquakes along prominent faults. Andaman island chains also
experience a greater number of seismic events. The Himalaya is the most seismically hazardous region
in India. Seismic experiments were conducted on Moon that recorded thousands of seismic events,
but only few are strong moonquakes comparable to earthquakes. The moonquakes occurred
randomly, unlike plate boundary earthquakes. This confirms absence of plate tectonics on the Moon.
Mars also suffered seismic activity. The recent NASA mission to Mars recorded few hundred seismic
events. Some of them are comparable to earthquakes in terms of energy. These are found in
tectonically active areas. The seismic data do not indicate plate tectonics on Mars. The CO2
measurements from earth’s atmosphere show it varied between below 300 ppb in 1960s which
increased to >400 ppm today. This increase was due to fossil fuel burning, leading to greenhouse effect
causing global warming of ~1°C. The melting of polar ice caps led to increase in sea-level, ocean
acidification and extreme weather events, including the recent Dubai extreme rainfall. To protect
earth from this calamity, we must act swiftly.

7. Conclusion

Here is the summary of earth’s evolution. Hadean earth may have had a global ocean, atmosphere
and formation of primary crust. Magnetosphere was formed. Heavy bombardment caused huge
damage to earth. Comets may have brought some water probably. Water and atmosphere formed.
Continents were grown fastly in Archaean due to long-lived magmatism. Oxygen was nearly absent or
low in concentration. By Archaean end, earth developed most of its continental land mass. The
Proterozoic was marked by cycles of super-continental break-up and assembly. Ocean and
atmosphere evolved further. Snowball earth event was also occurred. Microbial life was present.
Great oxygenation event occurred around 2300 Ma. The next Phaneozoic eon marked the bloom of
marine and land life. Most life forms were evolved during this time. Many extinctions events also

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Lecture on Earth and its Evolution, Dated 26 April 2024 (On-line)

occurred mainly because of volcanic eruptions and impact events that removed major species during
these times. The final break-up Gondwana has led to the formation of Pangea supercontinent, which
again broke-up to form the present set-up. The Himalaya was one of the outcomes of these events.
India faces severe earthquake hazard along the Himalayan belt, while some events did occur in the
stable sub-continent. A recent increase in the CO2 in atmosphere was a major cause of present global
warming that caused alarming levels of polar ice cap melting, sea level changes and extreme weather
events.

Disclaimer:

The views expressed in this lecture notes are based on a number of selected papers and books. It does
not represent a complete review of literature available on Earth. The lecture notes should be treated
as a starting reading material for students who have no background in earth sciences. The students
are encouraged to go through various other literature resources. The following book provides a
comprehensive review of earth’s evolution and the students are recommended to read this book:
Condie, K.C., 2022, Earth as an evolving planetary system, Fourth Edition, Academic Press, United
Kingdom, 397 pages.

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