Earth’s Evolution: The History of Earth and it’s Inhabitants

Hello! This story is another rewrite of mine! This story is the tale of Earth, and life. How Earth was formed, and how life took hold. How the Earth changed, and how life evolved along with it!

Section 1 ~ The Precambrian

Chapter 1 ~ Earth’s Formation - The Hadean Eon

About 4,600,000,000 years ago (or 4600 Mya), the Earth was formed. During this time, Earth was pounded by debris during the Early Bombardment. This was caused by the leftovers of the Sun’s formation, and the main course for the growth of the planets.
The leftovers were cannibalistic, eating each other through gravity to clump together into bigger and bigger celestial bodies. These celestial bodies were small rocks, asteroids and a few comets, that pulled smaller bodies onto themselves, making themselves bigger and have more gravity. Other leftovers weren’t the cannibalistic solids, they were gasses that could somehow be grouped together to form a large enough gravity well to become cannibalistic.
The celestial bodies eventually got big enough to become planets, which are still cannibalistic to this day.
Primitive Earth is “thought” (there’s evidence backing it up) to have collided with another planet, one the size of Mars, called Theia. This collision’s aftermath created Earth’s companion, the Moon.
Earth’s surface at this time wasn’t stable, no rocks from this Eon survived due to the heavy bombardment of asteroids and comets. The surface was rich in poisons and volcanic activity coming from below. These asteroids and comets, however, did give a benefit to Earth: the minerals and other materials that make up
Earth and the resources needed for life, such as water. The only survivor of this Eon is the crystal Zircon. This crystal has survived everything and is recycled from rock to rock. These crystals were eventually used by geochemist Clair Patterson, who discovered the age of the Earth using them.
The end of this 600 million year old Eon is recognized when the Earth's crust had cooled down enough to form small continents and liquid water to separate these microcontinents. This was the beginning of a new Eon, the Archean Eon.

References

1. Smith, Richard. “Australia: Awakening.” Edited by Lile Judickas and Karin Steininger, PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 11 Apr. 2013, www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/australias-first-4-billion-years-awakening/.
2. Druyan, Ann, et al. The Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey Episode 7. Performance by Niel DeGrasse Tyson, 20th Television, 2014.
3. “Chapter 2: Dust to Life.” Life: a Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth, by Richard Fortey, Alfred A Knopf, 2000.

Chapter 2 ~ Earth’s Formation - The Eoarchean

After the Hadean Eon, there came the Archean Eon. This Era was in many ways different from the Hadean. For one, the crust had hardened enough to create landmasses big enough to be considered microcontinents. Another difference is that the water brought by comets was cool and dense enough to become a liquid, that would quickly cover the entire crust of the Earth to only have five landmasses.

The five landmasses are now scattered across our home planet, each taking part of being a microcontinent. These formations were (in order of the beginning of formation):

Acasta Gneisses, Napier Complex, Itsaq Gneiss Complex, Saglek-Hebron Block, and the Nuvvuagittuq Supracrustal Belt.

The Acasta Gneisses Complex began it’s formation 4.02 billion years ago, 20 million years before the start of the Archean Eon itself. Most rocks in the Acasta Gneisses Complex is made from a metamorphic rock known as Gneiss (hence the name). The oldest Gneiss rock is Felsic Gneiss, a subtype of Gneiss that contains the minerals that make up feldspar and quartz. The Acasta Gneisses Complex is divided into two subdivisions: the Eastern and Western Domains. The Eastern, the most oldest, contains mostly Gneiss but also Tonalite and Granodiorite, rocks that are like granite but more like feldspar. The Western Domain consists of the youngest rocks. It is made up by Gneiss and Granite.

The East Antarctic Shield’s formation began 3.95 billion years ago, 50 million years after the start of the Archean Eon. The oldest part of the Shield, the Napier Complex, consists mainly of Tonalite-Trondhjemite-Granodiorite (or TTG) rocks.

The third oldest formation is the Itsaq Gneiss Complex, formation beginning at 3.9 billion years ago. It mainly consists of TTG as well. It is thought that the Itsaq Gneiss Complex was formed on a convergent plate boundary.

The youngest formation is the Nuvvuagittuq Supracrustal Belt, that was beginning to form 3.8 billion years ago. This formation is a volcano-sedimentary succession that is a isoclinal synform. It is made mostly by Cummingtonite and Amphibolite.

Most formations from this time are currently on northeastern North America, so it is possible that they could have formed a protocontinent.

As for life in this Era, there was the first life. 3.8 billion years ago, Bacteria and Archea appeared. There were both aerobic and photosynthetic microorganisms at this time. The oldest organisms seem to have lived in hydrothermal vents, much like modern deep-sea microorganisms do today. The first photosynthetic life seems to be Cyanobacteria, blue-green algae, that formed colonies and used mud to create mounds known as stromatolites to protect themselves.

These colonists pioneered the production of oxygen, turning a highly poisonous atmosphere into an oxygenated atmosphere and creating a new way to produce energy.

References

1. Condie, Kent. “Chapter 1.2 The Distribution of Paleoarchean Crust.” Developments in Precambrian Geology Volume 15, Elsevier, 12 Sept. 2007, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016626350715012X?via%3Dihub.
2. Iizuka, Tsuyoshi, et al. “Chapter 3.1 The Early Archean Acasta Gneiss Complex: Geological, Geochronological and Isotopic Studies and Implications for Early Crustal Evolution.” Developments in Precambrian Geology Volume 15, Elsevier, 12 Sept. 2007, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166263507150313.
3. Reimink, Jesse R., et al. “The Birth of a Cratonic Nucleus: Lithogeochemical Evolution of the 4.02–2.94 Ga Acasta Gneiss Complex.” Precambrian Research, Elsevier, 14 June 2016, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301926816301929?via%3Dihub.
4. Harley, Simon L., and Nigel M. Kelly. “Chapter 3.2 Ancient Antarctica: The Archaean of the East Antarctic Shield.” Developments in Precambrian Geology Volume 15, Elsevier, 12 Sept. 2007, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166263507150325.
5. Nutman, Allen P., et al. “Chapter 3.3 The Itsaq Gneiss Complex of Southern West Greenland and the Construction of Eoarchaean Crust at Convergent Plate Boundaries.” Developments in Precambrian Geology, Elsevier, 12 Sept. 2007, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166263507150337.
6. Nutman, Allen P., et al. “Evidence for 3650–3600 Ma Assembly of the Northern End of the Itsaq Gneiss Complex, Greenland: Implication for Early Archaean Tectonics.” AGU Journals, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 19 Feb. 2002, agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2000TC001203.
7. O'Neil, Jonathan, et al. “Chapter 3.4 The Geology of the 3.8 Ga Nuvvuagittuq (Porpoise Cove) Greenstone Belt, Northeastern Superior Province, Canada.” Developments in Precambrian Geology, Elsevier, 12 Sept. 2007, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166263507150349.
8. Mulkidjanian, Armen Y. “On the Origin of Life in the Zinc World: 1. Photosynthesizing, Porous Edifices Built of Hydrothermally Precipitated Zinc Sulfide as Cradles of Life on Earth.” Biology Direct, BioMed Central, 24 Aug. 2009, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3152778/.
9. Mulkidjanian, Armen Y, et al. “Origin of First Cells at Terrestrial, Anoxic Geothermal Fields.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, National Academy of Sciences, 3 Apr. 2012, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3325685/.
10. Smith, Richard. “Australia: Awakening.” Edited by Lile Judickas and Karin Steininger, PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 11 Apr. 2013, www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/australias-first-4-billion-years-awakening/.
11. Johnson, Kirk, and Gwyn Williams. “Making North America: Life.” Edited by Paul Shepard, PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 12 Nov. 2015, www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/making-north-america-life/.