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Life timeline
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 ← Earth formed
−4500 —
← Earliest water
– Water ← LUCA
← Earliest fossils
—
← LHB meteorites
– ← Earliest oxygen
Single-celled life
← Pongola glaciation*
−4000 — ← Atmospheric oxygen
– ← Huronian glaciation*
Photosynthesis ← Sexual reproduction
— ← Earliest multicellular life
– ← Earliest fungi
Eukaryotes ← Earliest plants
−3500 — ← Earliest animals
– ← Cryogenian ice age*
Multicellular life ← Ediacaran biota
— ← Cambrian explosion
– ← Andean glaciation*
P ← Earliest tetrapods
−3000 — l ← Karoo ice age*
– a ← Earliest apes / humans
n ← Quaternary ice age*
— t
s
–
−2500 —
Arthropods Molluscs
–
Flowers
—
Dinosaurs
–
−2000 —
Mammals
–
Birds
—
Primates
–
−1500 — H
a
– d
—
e
a
– n
−1000 —
–
 — A
r
–
c
−500 — h
e
–
a
— n
–
0—

P
r
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e
r
o
z
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c
P
h
a
n
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(million years ago)

*Ice Ages

Origin of life
Main article: Abiogenesis
The age of Earth is about 4.54 billion years.[65] Life on Earth has existed for at least 3.5
billion years,[66][67][68][69] with the oldest physical traces of life dating back 3.7 billion years.[70]
[71]
Estimates from molecular clocks, as summarized in the TimeTree public database,
place the origin of life around 4.0 billion years ago.[72] Hypotheses on the origin of life
attempt to explain the formation of a universal common ancestor from simple organic
molecules via pre-cellular life to protocells and metabolism.[73] In 2016, a set of
355 genes from the last universal common ancestor was tentatively identified.[74]

The biosphere is postulated to have developed, from the origin of life onwards, at least
some 3.5 billion years ago.[75] The earliest evidence for life on Earth
includes biogenic graphite found in 3.7 billion-year-old metasedimentary
rocks from Western Greenland[70] and microbial mat fossils found in 3.48 billion-year-
old sandstone from Western Australia.[71] More recently, in 2015, "remains of biotic life"
were found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia.[66] In 2017, putative
fossilised microorganisms (or microfossils) were announced to have been discovered
in hydrothermal vent precipitates in the Nuvvuagittuq Belt of Quebec, Canada that were
as old as 4.28 billion years, the oldest record of life on Earth, suggesting "an almost
instantaneous emergence of life" after ocean formation 4.4 billion years ago, and not
long after the formation of the Earth 4.54 billion years ago.[76]

Evolution
Main article: Evolution
Evolution is the change in heritable characteristics of biological populations over
successive generations. It results in the appearance of new species and often the
disappearance of old ones.[77][78] Evolution occurs when evolutionary processes such
as natural selection (including sexual selection) and genetic drift act on genetic
variation, resulting in certain characteristics increasing or decreasing in frequency within
a population over successive generations.[79] The process of evolution has given rise
to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation.[80][81]

Fossils
Main article: Fossils
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of organisms from the remote past. The
totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in layers
(strata) of sedimentary rock is known as the fossil record. A preserved specimen is
called a fossil if it is older than the arbitrary date of 10,000 years ago.[82] Hence, fossils
range in age from the youngest at the start of the Holocene Epoch to the oldest from
the Archaean Eon, up to 3.4 billion years old.[83][84]

Extinction
Main article: Extinction
Extinction is the process by which a species dies out.[85] The moment of extinction is the
death of the last individual of that species. Because a species' potential range may be
very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively after
a period of apparent absence. Species become extinct when they are no longer able to
survive in changing habitat or against superior competition. Over 99% of all the species
that have ever lived are now extinct.[86][87][88][89] Mass extinctions may have accelerated
evolution by providing opportunities for new groups of organisms to diversify.[90]

Environmental conditions

Cyanobacteria dramatically changed the composition of life

forms on Earth by leading to the near-extinction of oxygen-intolerant organisms.
The diversity of life on Earth is a result of the dynamic interplay between genetic
opportunity, metabolic capability, environmental challenges,[91] and symbiosis.[92][93][94] For
most of its existence, Earth's habitable environment has been dominated
by microorganisms and subjected to their metabolism and evolution. As a consequence
of these microbial activities, the physical-chemical environment on Earth has been
changing on a geologic time scale, thereby affecting the path of evolution of subsequent
life.[91] For example, the release of molecular oxygen by cyanobacteria as a by-product
of photosynthesis induced global changes in the Earth's environment. Because oxygen
was toxic to most life on Earth at the time, this posed novel evolutionary challenges, and
ultimately resulted in the formation of Earth's major animal and plant species. This
interplay between organisms and their environment is an inherent feature of living
systems.[91]

Biosphere
Main article: Biosphere

Deinococcus geothermalis, a bacterium that thrives

in geothermal springs and deep ocean subsurfaces[95]
The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be termed as the zone of
life on Earth, a closed system (apart from solar and cosmic radiation and heat from the
interior of the Earth), and largely self-regulating.[96] Organisms exist in every part of the
biosphere, including soil, hot springs, inside rocks at least 19 km (12 mi) deep
underground, the deepest parts of the ocean, and at least 64 km (40 mi) high in the
atmosphere.[97][98][99] For example, spores of Aspergillus niger have been detected in
the mesosphere at an altitude of 48 to 77 km.[100] Under test conditions, life forms have
been observed to thrive in the near-weightlessness of space[101][102] and to survive in the
vacuum of space.[103][104] Life forms thrive in the deep Mariana Trench,[105] and inside rocks
up to 580 m (1,900 ft; 0.36 mi) below the sea floor under 2,590 m (8,500 ft; 1.61 mi) of
ocean off the coast of the northwestern United States,[106][107] and 2,400 m (7,900 ft;
1.5 mi) beneath the seabed off Japan.[108] In 2014, life forms were found living 800 m
(2,600 ft; 0.50 mi) below the ice of Antarctica.[109][110] Expeditions of the International
Ocean Discovery Program found unicellular life in 120 °C sediment 1.2 km below
seafloor in the Nankai Trough subduction zone.[111] According to one researcher, "You
can find microbes everywhere—they're extremely adaptable to conditions, and survive
wherever they are."[106]