Ancient sediments from Greenland

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The oldest-known sedimentary rocks on the Earth comprise the 3.8billion-year-old Isua Sequence of southwestern Greenland. The rocks were once
sediments formed by chemical precipitation from ocean water. Intermittent eruptions
from nearby volcanoes added other sediment layers. The Isua rocks tell geologists
important things about the early Earth: (1) there already was an ocean in which the
sedimentary laters were laid down; (2) volcanoes already existed; and (3) erosion of
the rocks was promoted by an atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide and water vapor.
The rocks also contain geochemical evidence of the earliest life.

What we learn from meteorites

The most important clues about the early stages of the solar system come from
meteorites. Some meteorites are older than the formation of the Earth. They reveal
how smaller bodies coalesced to form planets, and how our own planet developed
after it had formed.

How has the Earth evolved?

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Rocks tell the Earth's story
The continental crust contains the historical record of our planet. Its most ancient
rocks are four billion years old, and the youngest ones are still forming today. Parts
of the continental crust may be older than four billion years, but if so, they are not
exposed, or have not been found, on the Earths surface. The rocks of the crust
convey the story of how the planet has been transformed between the period shortly
after its formation and the way we see it today.
How did the Earth form?
The Sun and its family of planets formed when a cloud of dust and gas condensed
4.6 billion years ago. Several hundred million years after the Earth took form, an
outer crust developed. But these surface rocks are no longer available for study: they
have disappeared into the interior of our dynamic planet. Our only clues to how the
Earth formed come from meteorites and the Moon because both formed
simultaneously with the planets.
What is the Earth made of?
The great bulk of our planet is composed of oxygen, iron, silicon, and magnesium.
Since the Earth formed relatively close to the Sun by the aggregation of smaller solid
bodies, it is a rocky, solid planet whose atmosphere formed later. The more remote,

giant gas planets, from Jupiter to Neptune, formed predominantly from the lighter,
more volatile elements, like hydrogen and helium.

The Earth's crust

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The Earths crust is its lightest, most buoyant rock layer. Continental
crust covers 41percent of the Earths surface, though a quarter of that area is under
the oceans. The continental crust is 20 to 80 kilometers thick. Its rocks hold four
billion years of Earth history. The remainder of the Earth is covered by oceanic crust.
This type of crust is young none older than 170 million years and is only about
8 kilometers thick.

Rocks from the continental crust

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Continental crust is significantly thicker than oceanic crust. It stands
higher and penetrates deeper into the mantle than its oceanic counterpart. The
upper continental crust is exposed at many places, and its composition is well
known. The lower continental crust is not exposed; geologists learn about it by
studying how shock waves from earthquakes and man-made explosions pass
through it, and by examining the rare fragments carried to the surface by erupting
lavas.

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Shale

Sedimentary rocks form a thin veneer over much of the crust.

Granodiorite
The upper crust is made of low-density granitic rocks.

Gneiss
Dense metamorphic rocks, such as granulite and gneiss, make up most of the lower
crust.

Eclogite
This rare sample, also from the deep crust, contains tiny red garnets and dark green
pyroxene that formed at 50 to 60 kilometers below the surface, at 600 degrees
Centigrade.

The oldest rocks and minerals on Earth

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Much of the evidence from the oldest period of the Earths history, the
Hadean era (3.8 to 4.5 billion years ago), has been destroyed by erosion, burial, and
modifications of the rocks as they were heated and compressed at depth. Yet clues
can be found in the durable mineral zircon. Zircon usually contains a small amount of
the radioactive element uranium, and its age can be determined by measuring how
much of the uranium has transformed to lead.
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The oldest known rock

By dating the zircons embedded within the Acasta gneiss, geologists have
determined its age to be 3.96 billion years.

Zircon crystals
This quartz pebble conglomerate formed three billion years ago, but the zircon
crystals in it are up to 4.276 billion years old, making them the oldest dated material
on Earth.

Heat from the Earth

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The interior of the Earth is hot, and its temperature increases with
depth. Some of the heat is left over from Earths earliest days, when the planet was
partially molten. But most of the heat is generated today by the energy released
when unstable, or radioactive, elements transform themselves into stable elements.
The most important of these are uranium, thorium, and potassium. These elements
are concentrated in the crust, from which much of Earths heat now emanates.

Banded Iron Formation

About
A nearly 3-billion-year-old banded iron formation from Canada shows
that the atmosphere and ocean once had no oxygen. Photosynthetic organisms were

making oxygen, but it reacted with the iron dissolved in seawater to form iron oxide
minerals on the ocean floor, creating banded iron formations.
The dark layers in this boulder are mainly composed of magnetite (Fe3O4) while the
red layers are chalcedony, a form of silica (SiO2) that is colored red by tiny iron oxide
particles. Some geologists suggest that the layers formed annually with the changing
seasons.

The differentiated Earth

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The differentiation, or organization, of the Earth into layers is perhaps
the most significant event in its history. It led to the formation of a core, a crust, and
eventually continents. The light elements were driven from the interior to form an
ocean and atmosphere.
These four blocks are the same size. But they have different densities, and therefore
their masses are also different. Lift each one to compare their weights.
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Atmosphere
The first atmosphere probably formed by the continuous release of gases from the
Earths molten interior soon after it coalesced.

Core (Iron)
The Earths core, its densest layer, is made up of iron-nickel alloy.

Mantle (Peridotite)
Peridotite, a rock made up primarily of the minerals olivine and pyroxene, is the chief
constituent of the Earths upper mantle.

Crust (Granite)
Granite, an igneous rock composed mainly of the minerals quartz and feldspar,
makes up most of the upper crust.

Oceans (Water)
As the Earths surface cooled below 100 degrees Centigrade, water rained out of the
atmosphere to form the ocean.

A special planet

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Of all the objects in our solar system, only Earth can support life as we
know it. It is the right size, and the right distance from the Sun. Its temperature range
is such that its free water is present and available for life. And the Earths climate has
been stable for billions of years, a factor in allowing life to emerge, flourish, and
evolve. How life began, how it evolved, and how it affected the evolution of the
planet itself, are among the great questions of our time.
How did life begin?
One of the simplest definitions of a life-form is: anything with the capacity to
reproduce and regulate itself. Before life began, the complex organic, or

hydrocarbon-bearing, molecules that make up RNA and DNA, the building blocks of
life, must have formed. No one knows exactly how, but many ideas have been put
forward.
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Stromatolites
Stromatolites mats of bacteria that trap and precipitate sediments were rare in
the early Precambrian era, but they became more common 2.6 billion years ago,
when shallow seas were more extensive.
How do we know about the early atmosphere?
Among the oldest rocks on Earth are many sedimentary rocks known as banded iron
formations.

Life explodes

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For more than three billion years, the Earth harbored only single-celled
organisms. At some point, multi-cellular life appeared, in the form of jellyfish, worms,
and sponges. But these early animals, being soft-bodied, left few fossil traces. About
560 million years ago, animals with shells formed, and their skeletal remains left
markers in the sediments. Within tens of millions of years, most groups of organisms
that we recognize today had appeared, in what is known as the Cambrian
explosion.
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The age of microbes

Geochemical evidence, in the form of traces of organic carbon in rocks, suggests
that life existed nearly 3.9 billion years ago.

The oldest fossil?

This 3.5-billion-year-old black chert from the Warrawoona Group of Western
Australia contains microscopic forms believed by some scientists to be fossil
bacteria.

The oldest fossil?

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This 3.5-billion-year-old black chert from the Warrawoona Group of
Western Australia contains microscopic forms believed by some scientists to be
fossil bacteria. If these are actually fossils, they are the oldest-known examples of
life. The microfossils resemble modern light-sensitive bacteria, and the rocks in
which they are found formed near the surface of a shallow sea. It is thus likely that
organisms employing photosynthesis the use of sunlight for food and energy
were providing oxygen for an evolving atmosphere.
Provided by Prof. Roger Buick, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

The age of microbes

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Geochemical evidence, in the form of traces of organic carbon in rocks,
suggests that life existed nearly 3.9 billion years ago. From 3.9 to about 1.2 billion
years ago, life was confined to microbes, or single-celled organisms. During this
time, the microbes prospered, gradually altering their surroundings. The conditions

they created made the environment hospitable for the emergence of more complex
life-forms, beginning about 1.2 billion years ago.
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An evolving atmosphere

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About 1.7 billion years ago, banded iron formations sedimentary
rocks consisting of iron-rich layers alternating with iron-poor ones stopped
forming. By this time, photosynthesis had supplied enough oxygen to entirely
deplete the oceans of their iron. With no more iron available to remove the oxygen,
the gas slowly began to accumulate in the atmosphere, increasing to perhaps 2
percent near the ...
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Rocks that reveal conditions of early Earth

Clues to the conditions on the early Earth are found in rocks like the Huronian
Supergroup, a set of sedimentary rock formations, up to 12 kilometers thick, laid
down between 2.5 and 2.2 billion years ago.

Pyrite-bearing conglomerate
This quartz-pebble conglomerate is from one of the oldest layers of the Huronian
Super-group.

Gray-white quartzite
This quartzite formed in a riverbed, as indicated by the well-developed cross-bedding
(sedimentary layers at angles to the main horizontal layers).

Icebox or hothouse?
By observing other stars, we think that the Suns luminosity has increased by 25
percent since its formation.

Red quartzite
The rocks in the upper part of the Huronian Supergroup are red-brown, like this
quartzite specimen.

Why are there ocean basins,

continents, and mountains?

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Over millions of years, ocean basins open and close, continents move
and change shape, and mountains are pushed up and eroded away. Such dynamic
processes continually reshape the surface of the Earth. The movement of rigid plates
on the Earths surface, known as plate tectonics, is the cause of these changes.
Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are dramatic hints of the great movements that
take place over the vastness of geological time.
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Wallace Gilroy Bronze Earth model
The globe before you is a model of the solid Earth.

Explosive volcanism
Most explosive eruptions occur in volcanoes above subduction zones, where one
tectonic plate dives beneath the other.

Non-explosive volcanism
People associate volcanoes with spectacular explosive eruptions, yet most
volcanoes erupt basalt, a fluid lava from the mantle that erupts effusively and forms
flows.

Earthquakes
No other natural force compares in sheer power with earthquakes.

Mountain building

The mountain ranges that span the globe mark boundaries where the Earths plates
converge.

Plate tectonics
Plate tectonics has emerged as one of the grand unifying theories of geology.

What causes climate and climate

change?

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Weather and Climate
Weather is the state of the atmosphere in a region over days and weeks, while
climate is the average state of the weather over the longer term decades,
centuries, and millennia. Both are described by temperature, air pressure,
cloudiness, moisture, wind speed, and wind direction. Many factors influence
climate: the amount of sunlight, the condition of the atmosp...
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The world ocean

Changes in ocean circulation strongly influence climate.

Climate cycles

The seasons, which are caused by the tilt of the Earths axis, are the most important
periodic fluctuations in climate.

The atmosphere
The atmosphere is an envelope of gases that surrounds the Earth and is held there
by gravity.
Forces that shape the surface of our planet
The ocean and atmosphere comprise the outer layer of the Earth and are major
forces that shape its surface.

How climate has changed

Climate changes over time. Twenty thousand years ago, much of Europe and North
America was covered with a thick sheet of ice, as Greenland is today.

Lobate coral
Coral is a useful indicator of local past climate.

Atmospheres on Earth and Venus

Venus and Earth are about the same size and probably started out with similar
atmospheres, but now their atmospheres and climates are very different.

The world ocean

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Changes in ocean circulation strongly influence climate. This is
because the circulation of water throughout the worlds five oceans, together with the
atmosphere, transfers heat from the equator to the polar regions. The factors
influencing how water circulates within each ocean and from one ocean to another
include the spin of the Earth; the winds; the input of fresh water from rivers, rain, and
melting ice; the positions of the continents; and the topography of the seafloor.
Circulation in the ocean transfers solar heat from the equator to the poles.
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Layers of the ocean

The oceans waters form layers, with denser water at the bottom.

Surface ocean currents

Surface currents are driven by the winds, and in turn influence atmospheric
circulation.

Deep-ocean circulation
Water warmed at the equator by the Sun flows into the North Atlantic, where it is
cooled and becomes more salty because of evaporation.

Why is the sea salty?

The rivers and the oceans that feed them have different compositions.

Why is the sea salty?

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The rivers and the oceans that feed them have different compositions.
Calcium is predominant in rivers, and sodium and chlorine in oceans, in the form of
dissolved salt. Calcium is rapidly removed from ocean water by marine organisms,
such as clams and corals. Sodium is removed by clay particles, but much more
slowly. This is why the sea is salty.
Polar ice and climate
Polar ice affects the climate by reflecting more solar radiation, and thus more heat,
than land or water. In addition, ice affects climate by removing fresh water from, or
supplying it to, the polar seas through freezing and melting. For example, as sea ice
forms, the salt content of the cold surface water increases, making it denser and
causing it to sink. The cold deep water flows south, drawing warm surface water
from the tropics northward to replace it. This transport of heat from the equator to the
poles warms the northern latitudes.

Deep-ocean circulation

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Water warmed at the equator by the Sun flows into the North Atlantic,
where it is cooled and becomes more salty because of evaporation. This cold, salty
water sinks to the seafloor and forms a huge undersea river. The deep water flows
through the oceans, welling up where winds push away warm surface water. This
transfer of salty water is balanced by fresh water evaporated from the Atlantic and
carried to the Pacific by the atmosphere. There, it falls as rain, diluting the upwelling
salty water with fresh water.

Surface ocean currents

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Surface currents are driven by the winds, and in turn influence
atmospheric circulation. Both are shaped by the spin of the Earth. Surface currents
form huge gyres circular patterns that, because of the Earths rotation, flow
clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern
hemisphere. Boundary currents, on the edges of the gyres, carry warm tropical water
to the higher latitudes and cold polar water to the lower latitudes.

o
Climate cycles

o
o
o
o
o

The record of El Nino

Coral core

The atmosphere
Forces that shape the surface of our planet
How climate has changed
Lobate coral
Atmospheres on Earth and Venus

Why is the Earth habitable?

Dynamic Earth

Climate cycles

Climate cycles

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The seasons, which are caused by the tilt of the Earths axis, are the most
important periodic fluctuations in climate. But changes in atmospheric and oceanic
circulation pat-terns also cause periodic changes in climate on a global scale. The best known
is El Nio Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which originates in the Pacific Ocean but creates
effects around the world. Less well known is the North Atlantic Oscillation, which affects the
climates of northern Europe and the Maritime Provinces in Canada.
El Nino
Every two to seven years, the El Nio phenomenon causes atmospheric pressure over the
western Pacific Ocean to rise. The equatorial ocean currents that usually flow westward
reverse themselves, and the normally cold waters off the coasts of Peru and Chile are
replaced with warmer water. This prevents cold, nutrient-rich water from welling up, ruining
coastal fishing. It typically happens around Christmastime, hence the name El Nio, or the
Christ child

Lobate coral

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Coral is a useful indicator of local past climate. This piece of coral

(Porites lobata) is a skeleton built of calcium carbonate extracted from seawater by
coral polyps. Coral formed in the winter has a different density than that formed in
the summer, creating annual bands. This piece came from a coral that grew from
approximately 1740 to 1900. Because coral grows near the ocean surface, the
thickness of the layers varies with changes in temperature, salinity, and cloud cover.

Forces that shape the surface of our

planet

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The ocean and atmosphere comprise the outer layer of the Earth and
are major forces that shape its surface. They wear down mountains and redeposit
them as sediments, carving the landscapes we live in. In turn, the positions of the
continents and mountains, along with the heat from the Sun, determine ocean
currents and atmospheric circulation. This Antarctic ventifact, a rock shaped by
windblown sand, symbolizes the dynamic relationship between the atmosphere and
the solid Earth.

Why is the Earth habitable?

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A special planet: the habitable Earth
What makes the Earth habitable? It is the right distance from the Sun, it is protected
from harmful solar radiation by its magnetic field, it is kept warm by an insulating
atmosphere, and it has the right chemical ingredients for life, including water and
carbon. The processes that shape the Earth and its environment constantly cycle
elements through the planet. This cycling sustains life and leads to the formation of
the mineral and energy resources that are the foundation of modern technological
society.

Earth cycles

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Cycles of a living planet
The Earth is a dynamic planet. Geological and biological processes cause energy
and the elements necessary for life-carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and
phosphorus- to circulate through global reservoirs. These reservoirs are the

biosphere (the living portion of our planet), the atmosphere, the ocean, and the solid
Earth. It is only because of this cycling that life can thrive. The cycling of elements
determines the environment, for example by regulating the composition, and thus the
temperature, of the atmosphere.

The rock cycle

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The rock cycle takes eons. It strongly affects the carbon and other
geochemical cycles by locking up critical elements for tens to hundreds of millions of
years. Over the age of the Earth, some rocks have passed many times through the
complete cycle. The igneous (granite), sedimentary (claystone), and meta-morphic
(gneiss) rocks shown here represent stages in this cycle.

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Granite
This igneous rock formed when molten material intruded into the shallow crust,
where it cooled and crystallized.

Claystone
Weathering and erosion of rocks like granites concentrate elements that are
necessary to form clay minerals, which accumulate as sediments.

Gneiss
With burial and the associated increase in pressure and heating, shales may be
transformed by re-crystallization in the deep crust into metamorphic rock, like this
gneiss.

Ocean Currents
Over millions of years, plate tectonics changes the configuration of continents, which
in turn shapes ocean circulation patterns.

Together, deep-ocean currents and atmospheric circulation transport huge amounts

of heat and salt around the globe.
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