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45,400 BCE
Birth of Earth
Pulled by gravity, different types of materials and steroids around the Sun collided together and formed a planet, the massive collision caused the center of the planet of heat up, melting the dust and steroids, turning them molten. Gravity then separated the different materials by density, the densest materials condense in the center of the planet while the lightest materials rise up to the surface. The planet gradually builds itself up as more and more dust/steroids are being pulled over. -
45,000 BCE
Big Splash
Theia, a planet around the size of Mars, collided with the early earth while traveling at nearly 10 miles per second. The collision created a massive blast wave, splashing trillions of debris into space. -
Period: 45,000 BCE to 44,000 BCE
Creation of Moon
From the big splash, a ring of dust and rocks formed around the earth and circles the planet. From the ring, a ball of over 2000 miles in diameter formed. And so, the moon that shines above our beds at night today was born. -
Period: 45,000 BCE to 40,000 BCE
Cooling
Earth has begun cooling down from the boiling liquid rock, forming a solidified rocky crust on the surface of the planet. -
Period: 41,000 BCE to 38,000 BCE
"Meteor Attack" -- Late Heavy Bombardment
Debris left over from the solar system's creation crashes into the earth's surface. The debris contains salt like crystals of water inside. As more and more meteorites hit the earth's surface, the water inside the debris gradually collects on the surface of the planet, forming an ocean. -
38,000 BCE
Oceans
By this time, water has covered the surface of the entire planet. The vast tides created by the moon's gravitational pull gradually calmed down as the moon moved further away from earth. -
38,000 BCE
Lands
Over time, molten rocks burst through the earth's crust, forming small islands on the surface of the water. As more and more magma rises through the ocean, the lava cools and builds up on top of each layer after each volcanic eruption. -
38,000 BCE
Early Life on Earth
Meteorites containing amino acids, carbon, and other chemicals are collected at the bottom of the ocean. Seawater collects minerals and gases through the earth's crust. The water combing minerals and chemicals from the meteorites are then released back into the ocean through underwater "chimnies". From there, single cell bacterias, the earliest form of life on earth, were created from the chemical water. -
35,000 BCE
Oxygen
Mounds of stromatolites, a colony of living bacteria, are attached to the sea bed. Through the process of photosynthesis, the stromatolites transfer carbon dioxide and water into glucose, while releasing a byproduct gas called oxygen. Which later became the essential elements for life on earth. -
Period: 35,000 BCE to 15,000 BCE
Extended Days
The stromatolites continue to pump gas into the earth's atmosphere, raising the earth's oxygen level. And as the planet's spin slows, the length of a day extended up to 16 hours. -
Period: 35,000 BCE to 25,000 BCE
Earth's Plates
Over millions of years, the earth's crust has separated into vast plates due to the movement of the earth's core beneath the crust. This created shifts between the land plates, pulling and pushing the oceans and volcanic islands together to form a large piece of land called the Rodinia. -
Period: 15,000 BCE to 11,000 BCE
Extended Days
As time passes, the earth's oxygen level is still gradually increased by the stromatolites. The surface temperature has reached 85˚C, and the days have been extended again to 18 hours long. -
Period: 7500 BCE to 6330 BCE
Separation of the Rodinia
The heat from the earth's core divides the vast land continent into two by weakening the crust. Over time, the powerful geological movements separated the two further and further away from each other. -
Period: 6500 BCE to 6350 BCE
Snowball Earth
The earth became entirely frozen in glacial ice due to the lack of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to keep the heat of the sun inside. The Snowball earth was caused by the mass amount of acid rain that ran over the earth's surface after the mass of volcanoes created by the intense geological activity from Rodinia's separation. -
6350 BCE
"Global Warming"
Finally, after 15 million years of earth frozen at -50°C, the heat from the core of the planet has busted through the cold hard glacier crust. CO₂ created from the volcanic activities were no longer utilized for photosynthesis, resulting in a mass increase of the CO₂ level within the atmosphere. Eventually, the rising CO₂ began to trap heat inside the earth's atmosphere (greenhouse effect), and the planet is alive once again.
