GPB 3203: Organism and Evolutionary Biology
Earth History and Evolution of life
Dr. Shanjida Rahman
Associate Professor, Dept. of Genetics and Plant Breeding
Bangladesh Agricultural University
Formation of Solar System
Some 4.5 billion years ago, our Solar System began to emerge out of a dense cloud
of interstellar gas and dust. This cloud collapsed into a swirling disk of matter that
got hotter and hotter until hydrogen fused into helium. And just like that, our Sun
was born. The baby Earth was on its way too.
After the birth of our star, all the matter on the farthest ends of the spinning disk began
to clump together. These clumps would be the seedlings for the planets and moons in our
Solar System. As they accumulated more matter, they grew bigger and more spherical.
Closer to the Sun, all the rocky material formed the inner planets like Mars and Earth.
Formation of Earth
• New born sun was orbited by different matters
• These matters clumped into bigger and spherical which
leads to formation of planets
• Planets closer to sun was hotter and distant from sun was
cooler.
• The Earth was formed by collisions of
particles in a large cloud of material.
• Slowly gravity gathered together all these
particles of dust and gas and formed larger
clumps.
• These clumps continued to collide and
gradually grew bigger and bigger
eventually forming the Earth.
• The earth at this time was very different to
how we know it today.
Formation of Moon
• Early Earth was constantly
bombarded by large
asteroids and comets.
• And soon, Earth experienced
an even more violent
collision.
• Theia, a planet the size of
Mars, slammed right into our
young world.
• This epic collision threw
chunks of matter all around
Earth’s orbit, and then
gravity bound them together
into what we now know as
the Moon.
Early Earth and Ocean Formation
• The early Earth was extremely hot, with molten
rock covering its surface, gradually cooling over
millions of years.
• On this hot early Earth, there were no oceans. All
water existed as gas.
• Gradually, our planet cooled enough for water to
condensate and become liquid.
• Additionally, countless planetesimals (small
celestial bodies) and icy planets bombarded into
early Earth.
• One big asteroid (diameter 1000km) flew into
earth, formed a giant crater. Surface water flowed
into the crater that turned one large ocean
• So, an ocean-atmospheric system was formed
from C, H, O and N containing planetesimals
which took over 200 millions year.
The Early Ocean
• An ocean-atmospheric system
was formed but the young ocean
is very toxic due to salinity and
presence of heavy metal.
• Carbonate mineral erupted
through volcanic activity reacted
with ocean heavy metal.
• Slowly heavy metal got deposited
and transported into deep mantle
through breakage of oceanic
plate.
• Thus the ocean started to
become a habitat resulting
formation of first proto-life.
Emergence of First Proto-life
The first proto-life emerged about 4 billions years ago in the nuclear geyser
Ear ly Ear th's atmosphere
contained methane (CH ₄),
ammonia (NH₄), hydrogen
(H₂), and nuclear gases,
for ming a primordial soup
rich in organic compounds.
Ear th's radioactive Natural nuclear reactions and
elements, par ticular ly lightning provided the energ y
uranium in nuclear to synthesize amino acids, the
geyser, contributed to building blocks of life. The
the generation of heat genetic material present in
and energ y, driving this proto life was called
chemical reactions ribozyme which could
essential for ear ly life. replicate, not generate energ y
1st Stage of Evolution of Life: Prokaryotes
The first proto life could not Amino acid
survive due to insufficient
energy.
The ocean was still toxic, resulting
massive killing of newly evolved Unstable
photo cells RNA
Gradually source of life sifted
from nuclear geyser to the
exposure of sun DNA
Some got evolved, learned to protect
photo cells from preventing metallic
Early life forms struggled and ions to enter into photo cell Protein
many got extinct, some evolve
themselves by utilizing lighting
energy into chemical energy Survived photo cell collided into Prokaryotic
(photo-cell formed) large and complex form (amino organism
acid). 20 different types of amino (anerobic)
acid having photo cell survived
mass extinction.
2nd Stage of Evolution: Emergence of Cyanobacteria
• Cyanobacteria, capable of
photosynthesis and producing
oxygen emerged.
• Due to production of oxygen, ocean
iron level got lower.
• Gradually, cyanobacteria flourished causing mass production of O2
resulting reduction of CH4 and CO2
• Due to mass O2 production, the Great Oxygenation event occurred,
which is also known as O2 catastrophe / O2 crisis / O2 revolution.
• The increasing oxygen levels drastically changed Earth's environment,
causing temperature drop.
• The earth experienced its first Ice Age.
Supercontinents of Earth
• In the mean time, some continents merged from ancient ocean called
‘Cratons’
• Vaalbara is considered Earth's first supercontinent, formed around 3.6
billion years ago.
• Earth atmosphere changes, supercontinents are moving too.
• They broke up and reassembled into next supercontinent.
• Evolution of supercontinents:
Vaalbara → Ur → Kenorland → Nuna → Rodinia → Pannotia →
Gondwana and Laurasia → Pangaea → Today's World.
• The future supercontinent: Pangaea Ultima, predicted to form in
approximately 250 million years.
Ice Ages of Ancient Earth
• The 1st Ice age occurred due to the Great Oxygenation event. As a result,
extinction event wiped out most of anaerobic microbes.
• The 2nd Ice age was known as “The Snowball Earth”.
The Snowball Earth:
• The milky way had a collision with a dwarf galaxy, resulting numerous star.
• Cosmic rays produced from supernova, entered into Sun’s hemisphere and
bombarded on Earth.
• Results generations of cloud more and more until the Earth was completely
blocked with snow, even the snow ice sheet from pole came until equator.
• The incident prevented sunlight to reach earth surface, causing another mass
extinction.
3rd Stage of Evolution: Eukaryotes
• Even during the Snowball Earth, some life under the ice sheet within the water
survived by being more complex form.
• This complex form was development of endosymbiotic system (living together
inside cell).
• The features of endosymbiotic system are
• They form numerous mitochondria and chloroplast, resulting more energy
• Nuclear membrane formed to protect DNA
• DNA strands grew longer, retaining more genetic information
• Finally, at long last the eukaryotes appeared.
Increase of oxygen in land atmosphere
• The supercontinent Nuna had lakes, rivers and wetlands which provided an
expanding habitat for cyanobacteria.
• In wetland water, cyanobacteria produced O2 which was again consumed to
decompose cyanobacteria.
• But in land, the dead cyanobacteria got buried under sedimentation, so O2 ended
up in the atmosphere.
• As a result, atmospheric
O2 level on land
increased compared to
ocean
• As much land exposed
as much atmospheric
O2 increased
The Leaking Earth
• The mantle of young Earth was very hot as 650oC, but
it was getting cooler day by day.
• Then the temperature went under 650oC , the oceanic
element went into upper mantle resulting ocean level
drop.
• More land exposed to sun, more O2 produced, more
chance of life on earth
• Explosive evolution of life forms were ready to occur,
the period was known as “The dawn of Cambrian
explosion”.
More Ice Ages of Ancient Earth
The Sturtian Glaciation:
• Occurred around 717-660 million years ago again due to cosmic rays.
• Period of extreme cold and followed by extreme heat.
• Good opportunities for new species to appear through genetic mutation
The Marionoan Glaciation:
• Another severe glaciation period occurred around 650 million years ago
• Multicellular organism like Sponges appeared which was 1 million times bigger
than eukaryotes and 1 trillion times bigger than prokaryotes.
More Ice Ages of Ancient Earth
The Gaskiers Glaciation:
• Another major ice age occurred around 580 million years ago.
• That also gradually ended and the global climate was finally warmed up.
• Phosphorus and other materials essential for life circulated through climatic system
and accumulated in the ocean
• The Ediacaran fauna (soft, no shell and skeleton) appeared in Rodinia supercontinent.
• P and Ca increased in ocean, animals with bones and shell appeared.
• Many Ediacaran fauna died due to another glaciation (Baikonur Glaciation).
Stem Evolution
• Continents broke apart due to volcanic
exposure of magma and radio active
element which was called continental rift.
• Radiation hastened the creation of new life.
• The creation of new species at the
continental rift is called Stem Evolution.
• Life evolved separately on each small
continents.
Crown Evolution
• When small continents collided / recombined their different life form cross-bred
• As a result new form of life with huge variation was created (Crown Evolution)
• New surface, new life, more nutrition; all resulted in creation of diversified new
species. This period was called “The Cambrian Explosion” (35 new phyla).
Conclusions
There are three ways that life evolved:
• Mass extinction:
That eradicated many species. The species that could evolve eventually
only survived.
• Stem Evolution:
That hastened genetic mutations when continents broke apart.
• Crown evolution:
That hastened bio-diversification when continents collided.
“So, the evolution of life is inextricably linked to environmental
changes due to universal factors, and continents assembling
together and breaking apart.”