In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God said; Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said; Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.  And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas: and God saw that it was good.  And God said; Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said; Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

These words are some of the most familiar words of The Bible and are to be found in the first chapter of Genesis. This is therefore how creation was seen to be before the sciences of Geology, astrophysics and evolution were born. As we shall see; in some respects the ancients were not very far off the mark with respect to our current view of things.

In this series of learning documents we shall look at the creation, the beginnings of life and the fossil record and Geological Time.

We will also look at the formation of continents and continental drift, volcanoes, igneous activity and various rocks and minerals throughout this learning experience.

CHAPTER 1

“In The Beginning” – the Creation

There have been many theories over the millennia as to how the Earth, The Solar System and the Universe came into being. How something was created out of nothing. Philosophers, Religions and scientists seem to have wrestled with this problem for ever. According to the Bible of course, we have the Supreme Creator, GOD and most religions have similar Creation stories. Science however tries to explain the creation of something out of nothing by invoking the Big Bang Theory. Fifteen billion years ago, the entirety of our universe was compressed into the confines of an atomic nucleus, known as a singularity. This was the moment before creation when space and time did not exist. According to the prevailing cosmological models that explain our universe, a massive explosion, trillions of degrees in temperature on any measurement scale, that was infinitely dense, created all the matter and elements and fundamental subatomic particles in the universe. In addition space and time itself was created. Such an event is out of the bounds of our imagination and the physics and mathematics involved is quite mind boggling..

It appears that the earth and the solar system were created from a primordial nebula of gases and material formed some 10 billion years earlier during the Creation. Gravitational forces gradually bringing material together to form the nebula which then condensed to form the sun, the planets and the solar system. These processes are believed to be still ongoing in the outer reaches of the Universe.

The generally accepted age for the Earth and the rest of the solar system is about 4.55 billion years (plus or minus about 1%). This value is derived from several different lines of evidence. Unfortunately, the age cannot be computed directly from material that is solely from the Earth. This is because the process of erosion and crustal re-cycling (by the processes of plate tectonics) have apparently destroyed all of the earliest material. One of the methods used to calculated the age of the earth involves the measurement of the ratios of 3 isotopes of  lead. (Pb-206, Pb-207 and Pb-204) and using them to construct a graph and then extrapolating backwards in time. Samples from the earth and from various meteorites have been used in these measurements. The lead isotopes are the result of radioactive decay of the different isotopes of uranium. The rate of radioactive decay of uranium to lead is well known from experimental data. The oldest rocks which have been found so far on the Earth date to about 3.8 to 3.9 billion years ago (by several radiometric dating methods). Some of these rocks are sedimentary, and include minerals which are themselves as old as 4.1 to 4.2 billion years. Rocks of this age are relatively rare, however rocks that are at least 3.5 billion years in age have been found on North America, Greenland, Australia, Africa, and Asia. In Western Australia, single zircon crystals found in younger sedimentary rocks have radiometric ages of as much as 4.3 billion years, making these tiny crystals the oldest materials to be found on Earth so far. The source rocks for these zircon crystals have not yet been found.

The Moon has not been disturbed by plate tectonics nor erosion; therefore ancient rocks are more plentiful than on the earth. Only a small number of rocks were returned to Earth by the six Apollo and three Luna missions. The oldest dated moon rocks have ages between 4.4 and 4.5 billion years and provide a minimum age for the formation of our nearest planetary neighbour.

Thousands of meteorites, which are fragments of asteroids that fall to Earth, have been recovered. These primitive objects provide the best ages for the time of formation of the Solar System. There are more than 70 meteorites, of different types, whose ages have been measured using radiometric dating techniques. The results show that the meteorites, and therefore the Solar System, formed between 4.53 and 4.58 billion years ago.

After “The Beginning”

Very little is known of the history of the earth over the next 800 million years after its formation, a time which is known as PRE-ARCHAEAN, as so little material has been preserved from this time. We can only speculate that the earth once it had cooled to a solid entity following its creation, from the hot gaseous nebula; was a very inhospitable place with a poisonous atmosphere of hydrogen, carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia. There would have been no oxygen in the atmosphere at this time. Volcanic activity would have been abundant, pouring our billions of tons of noxious gases into the atmosphere. Life was still a long way off.

The History of the earth is divided into Eras and Periods which are set out in the Geological Times Scale.

The ages of these periods are set out below: The Era name is shown in brackets.

Quaternary (Cenozoic):                         started 2 million years ago

Tertiary (Cenozoic):                                 started 66 million years ago

Cretaceous (Mesozoic):                           started 144 million years ago

Jurassic (Mesozoic):                               started 208 million years ago (Name origin: Jura mountains)

Triassic (Mesozoic):                                started 245 million years ago

Permian (Late Palaeozoic):                 started 286 million years ago

Carboniferous (Late Palaeozoic):     started 360 million years ago

Devonian (Late Palaeozoic):                 started 408 million years ago (Name Origin: the county of Devon)

Silurian (Lower Palaeozoic):          &nberia or more commonly called Blue-green algae. They are some of the most primitive forms of life, which are still around today. They are not really algae as they do not have cell membranes or a nucleus. However, they do contain chlorophyll which is used in photosynthesis. They can be found in all sorts of environments from your local pond to hot springs and pools in active volcanic craters. The important point about these organisms is that they are photosynthetic and convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. It was not until the atmosphere became oxygenated was it possible for life as we know it to exist. It is difficult to say when the atmosphere had sufficient oxygen present to allow the development and subsequent diversification of life, from bacteria and simple life forms to mobile animal forms. Throughout the next 3000 million years or so (this time is known as the Pre-Cambrian)  life continued to develop and become more diversified and it was not until the Cambrian Period, which started some 545 million years/o:p>

point about these organisms is that they are photosynthetic and convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. It was not until the atmosphere became oxygenated was it possible for life as we know it to exist. It is difficult to say when the atmosphere had sufficient oxygen present to allow the development and subsequent diversification of life, from bacteria and simple life forms to mobile animal forms. Throughout the next 3000 million years or so (this time is known as the Pre-Cambrian)  life continued to develop and become more diversified and it was not until the Cambrian Period, which started some 545 million years ago that the seas were abundant with life. As far as is known all of the known life was in the seas and it was not for many millions of years to come before land plants and animals became abundant.

Blue-green algae. They are some of the most primitive forms of life, which are still around today. They are not really algae as they do not have cell membranes or a nucleus. However, they do contain chlorophyll which is used in photosynthesis. They can be found in all sorts of environments from your local pond to hot springs and pools in active volcanic craters. The important point about these organisms is that they are photosynthetic and convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. It was not until the atmosphere became oxygenated was it possible for life as we know it to exist. It is difficult to say when the atmosphere had sufficient oxygen present to allow the development and subsequent diversification of life, from bacteria and simple life forms to mobile animal forms. Throughout the next 3000 million years or so (this time is known as the Pre-Cambrian)  life continued to develop and become more diversified and it was not until the Cambrian Period, which started some 545 million years ago that the seas were abundant with life. As far as is known all of the known life was in the seas and it was not for many millions of years to come before land plants and animals became abundant.

point about these organisms is that they are photosynthetic and convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. It was not until the atmosphere became oxygenated was it possible for life as we know it to exist. It is difficult to say when the atmosphere had sufficient oxygen present to allow the development and subsequent diversification of life, from bacteria and simple life forms to mobile animal forms. Throughout the next 3000 million years or so (this time is known as the Pre-Cambrian)  life continued to develop and become more diversified and it was not until the Cambrian Period, which started some 545 million yearspossibly the most important were the cyanobacteria or more commonly called Blue-green algae. They are some of the most primitive forms of life, which are still around today. They are not really algae as they do not have cell membranes or a nucleus. However, they do contain chlorophyll which is used in photosynthesis. They can be found in all sorts of environments from your local pond to hot springs and pools in active volcanic craters. The important point about these organisms is that they are photosynthetic and convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. It was not until the atmosphere became oxygenated was it possible for life as we know it to exist. It is difficult to say when the atmosphere had sufficient oxygen present to allow the development and subsequent diversification of life, from bacteria and simple life forms to mobile animal forms. Throughout the next 3000 million years or so (this time is known as the Pre-Cambrian)  life continued to develop and become more diversified and it was not until the Cambrian Period, which started some 545 million years ago that the seas were abundant with life. As far as is known all of the known life was in the seas and it was not for many millions of years to come before land plants and animals became abundant.