The Earth formed simultaneously with the other Solar System planets and the

central Sun. Accretion of planetesimals produced a large body which assumed a

spherical shape. Probably cool at the outset, this proto-Earth rapidly heated up,
formed its metallic core within 100 million years, and was subjected to
continuous impact bombardment by asteroids, comets, and meteories. It may
have had a molten exterior which quickly cooled to a crust. Very early in earth
history, its Moon was produced from a glancing collision with another planetlike
body. A second period of bombardment helped destroy the early crust. By about
3.8 billion years ago, rocks that survived until today formed crusts of more silicic
rocks embedded in a basaltic crustal layer that extended worldwide. Oceans
were produced early, weathering attacked the crustal rocks, and protocontinents
began to form, which probably were moved about by processes akin to
convection-driven plate tectonics. An early atmosphere consisted largely of
nitrogen, with some carbon dioxide, ammonia, methane, and water. Those
ingredients may have been converted to organic molecules which in turn
organized into primitive one-celled bacteria about 3.85 b.y. ago. In time, living
plant organisms developed the capability to photosynthesize solar energy,
releasing oxygen as an end product, which gas gradually built up to present day
levels, allowing more advanced life forms to evolve.

The Earth as a Planet

Earth is the largest of the four inner rocky planets. It almost certainly began to
organize in the earliest days of the Solar System, along with its sister planets,
even as the Sun itself came into being as a ball of hydrogen-helium gas mixed
with heavier elements. Some of the gas and much solids - mostly dust size -
remained outside the central region of the gas-dust "cloud" that comprised the
protostar system that evolved into the present day Solar System. The best
estimate of when this all began, based on meteorite age data (in which the
primitive meteorites are assumed to record the accumulation of the dust within
the local cloud that gathered into small objects), is between 4.55 and 4.6 billion
years ago. The Earth started to organize soon thereafter.

This illustration follows one of several similar models that describe these
formative phases, as applied both to Earth and to the planetary system as a
whole:
 Possible source: Indiana University

The upper left panel shows the local gas-dust cloud as initially cold, but with
some heating as it contracts (upper right). The middle left panel suggests that the
cloud has now contracted into a protoplanetary disk, within which light H and He
gases are drawn mainly to its center, where this material contracts rapidly into
the early Sun. The bottom two panels indicate that material in the disk has
separated into rings of denser materials which begin to heat up as their
constituents are swept up into ever larger bodies that collect enough solids and
gases to build into individual planets that gravitationally rework the hot solids
(probably with partial to nearly complete melting) into spheres. In the above
model, the Sun itself fully formed later in the contraction-ring development
process.

An actual example of a star-forming gas/dust cloud is shown in the Hubble Space

Telescope image of a nearby nebula:
Beyond the forming Sun, solids start out mainly as dust-sized particles that
collide and accrete into larger (meters range) bodies. Many of those further
interact to grow into bodies in the kilometers range, which are called
"planetesimals". The asteroids are an example.

Painting courtesy W.K. Hartmann; copyright

Collisions persist, with some bodies growing larger than most others, until they
reach sizes similar to present day planets or planetary cores. Thus, the bigger
bodies use their growing gravitational force to attract smaller bodies that collide
and accrete onto the increasingly larger bodies. The Sun, meanwhile, is
organizing into a gas ball in which contraction raises internal temperatures to
greater than 1,000,000 ° C , to the extent that nuclear fusion commences. The
early Sun had less energy output than it does today. Its surface temperatures
then were less that at present. The fusion produces a steady solar wind that
drives particles outward. Most of the original H and He retained at first around the
inner planets is pulled off into space, in part because the lower gravity of these
bodies cannot hold on to these low atomic weight gases. The outer planets,
being further away, experience less solar wind and retain large amounts of H and
He, giving them more mass and stronger gravitational pull that maintains their
thick gas envelopes (including a mix with gases having other compositions).

All of this probably took less than 100 million years to accomplish, meaning that
the planets and Sun are approximately contemporaneous. In the Solar System
spatial realm, beyond the planets, a large quantity of gas and solids remained.
Meteoroids developed from these solids, some remaining at a range of
planetesimal sizes (these thus are primitive, carbon-rich and water-bearing,
making up the carbonaceous chondrite type of meteorite falling on Earth) with
others enlarging through collisions to 100s of kilometers. Examples of these
planetesimals are still mostly in the Kuiper Belt beyond Pluto. While this was
going on, much of the dust experienced some degree of melting (from solar
energy bursts, electrical discharge, shock waves, radioactivity?) that produced
small spheres of Fe-Mg silicates (chondrules; see previous page 19-2) that after
being dispersed are recombined into newer planetesimals.

A few planetesimals appear to have reached sizes that led to complete melting
and differentiation (by gravitational settling) into silicate bodies up to planet size,
most likely with iron-nickel cores. Today interplanetary space is occupied by
survivors of this early aggregation history as asteroids, comets (solid silicates
mixed with frozen water and/or carbon dioxide ice [the so-called dirty
"snowballs"]), and smaller meteoroids (many of which are broken pieces of small
protoplanets).

The larger bodies that melt will adopt near-spherical shapes (the result of equal
pull in all directions from internal gravity). The general arrangement of planet
distribution in the Solar System - four "small" inner planets (the Rocky Group
Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, the latter three with thin atmospheres) and four
"giant" outer planets (the Gas Ball Group Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune
with thick atmospheres)- may be unusual (in the light of recent observations of
planetary systems around other stars). These planets have survived now for
nearly 4.5 billion years. The giant planets influence the rocky planets in two vital
ways. First, their gravitational pull counterbalances that of the Sun, thus helping
to maintain the inner planet orbits. Second, the giants' large masses serve to
preferentially attract small bodies such as asteroids and comets, pulling them into
the gaseous envelopes around Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, thus
reducing the number that would otherwise hit the inner planets; early on they also
attract gases in large quantities that formdc the bulk of their volumes.

The position of Earth in the Solar System lineup seems fortuitously favored for its
unique plethora of living creatures. It is far enough from the Sun to avoid having
much of its atmosphere blown away; it is large enough to have retained that
atmosphere (which continued to grow during terrestrial degassing and has
evolved over time to support life). Its atmospheric-affected temperatures are
conducive to life's origins and survival. And its surficial temperature conditions
have permitted liquid water to be retained in large quantities, even in the early
days of Earth's history.

Many of the meteorites that fall on Earth come from the Asteroid Belt between
Mars and Jupiter. Some planetologists consider this belt to be the remnants of a
fully formed planet (which on melting provided an iron core and iron-stony inner
mantle that we observe in about 10% of the meteorite falls and finds). Others
hold that this belt never organized into a larger planet because of the disrupting
influence of Jupiter's gravity field.

More information on the above topics can be found on pages 20-11 and 20-12.

Let's zero in hereafter just on the Earth. It built up rapidly to a fraction of its
present size. As it grew, it became hotter, owing to three sources of heat: 1)
radioactive elements, of which K40 was most prevalent, and many short-lived
radioactive isotopes (e.g. Al26), whose decay released copious thermal energy;
these elements were about 3x more abundant then, since by now a large
proportion has decayed; 2) exothermic energy released as the Earth compacted
and contracted, and 3) energy added by impacting bodies during growth. There
is reason to believe that this proto-Earth underwent complete melting in its first
50 million years, with heavier iron and nickel, and smaller amounts of other
heavy elements, sinking centripetally to form the Fe-Ni core, and the bulk of
materials that are dominantly iron-magnesium silicates making up the outer Earth
in what remains today as the Mantle. Various planetologists argue about the
"completeness" of this melting - some restricting it to just the outer layers,
forming the so-called "magma ocean", others accepting partial melting. The
indication that the core is almost all metallic iron + nickel, a deduction based in
part on the nickel-iron meteorites that presumably were involved in another, now
disrupted planet, would be most easily explained by complete melting. The next
illustration is a conception of the early Earth surface as a partial magma ocean
with "islands" of cooler solid bodies
It is reasonable to assume, in this model, that the magma oceans cooled
sufficiently to form a thin solid crust of compositions similar to today's basic
igneous rocks (principally basalts at and near the surface and gabbros and
ultrabasics [e.g., pyroxenites] at greater depths). Parts of such a crust
floundered, much like the crusts on the lake in Halemaumau Crater at the summit
of today's Hawaii's Kilauea Iki volcano.

In the first billion years of Earth history (often called the Hadean Eon), the Earth's
surface as it cooled continued to be bombarded by comets, asteroids, and
meteoritic material at rates much greater than in more recent times thereafter.
Here, again, is an artist's view of this process.

A major, near catastrophic event, seems to have occurred in the first 50 million
years after the intial spherical Earth had formed and started (completed?)
melting. A body (Planet X) roughly the size of Mars, i.e., another terrestrial-type
planet or a huge asteroid, collided violently with Earth but more by grazing (at an
angle near 30°) than direct, head-on impact, which would almost surely have
totally disrupted the Earth. This is shown in the next figure and is discussed in
detail on page 19-6b.

From Universe Today

Another, less plausible variant of this model has both the Earth and Planet X
mutually breaking each other apart; most planetologists now think in terms of the
Earth remaining intact. Some of the incoming body's material was added to the
Earth (which may have been smaller then but thus grew to its present size by
collisional additions). The Earth may have largely remelted and resumed core
formation. Much of the ejected material circled the Earth close in (initially the
Moon was about a tenth its present distance from Earth, but it has gradually
receded outward owing to tidal friction losses that lessened gravitational
interactions). This orbiting material rapidly organized into terrestrially-derived
planetesimals until the just-born Moon itself melted and organized into a
spherical body.. Chemical similarities (including diagnostic isotopic compositions)
establish this Earth-Moon kinship. The Moon, initially of molten fragments and
much solid ejecta, accreted in its orbit, then probably melted completely forming
a very small, now solid iron core, differentiated, and formed a feldspar-rich crust
(the anorthositic Highlands discussed later in this Section).

One vital consequence attributed to this collision was that the Earth's rotation
axis was tilted 23°: from the orbital ecliptic by the process. This gave rise to the
variations of illumination of different parts of the planet during an Earth year
(during the early Hadean the Earth day was just 6 hours long because of more
rapid rotation; tidal interactions with the Moon have been slowing the rotation
progressively, so that earth days are getting longer.

If we defer for the moment the story of how various crusts formed over Earth
history, these next two illustrations describe the structure of the Earth (as it is
now but was largely developed in the first billion years) and the composition in
terms of total Earth and outer crust.
Another major event in the first billion Hadean years was what is known as the
"Second Bombardment", in which a notable fraction of the larger objects near the
Earth were involved in frequent impacts. The evidence for this is inferential:
Study of lunar chronology has demonstrated a heavy bombardment about 3.9
billion years ago. The Earth, a much larger target, must also have experienced
this bombardment but nearly all rocks that would have recorded these events
have been destroyed.
A very important part of the story of early Earth involves the transition from solid
crust over the entire globe to a stage in which the Earth became the "Water
Planet". Evidence is mounting that this may have begun as soon as 150 to 200
million years after Earth's first formation. The extent of the water over the surface
may have been regional or even more widespread. The source of the water was
to some extent from the interior through venting from volcanoes and lava
outpourings. Many planetologists believe that at least some (the proportion still
debatable) water was added from comets, asteroids, and meteoroids, many of
which contain significant but variable amounts of bound or free H2O. The critical
condition behind water's accumulation is that the surface and atmospheric
temperatures were between 0 and 100 degrees Centigrade. The primary
consequences of this water buildup and its activity through rainfall and flow are
that sedimentary rocks could form and, if other factors were operative, primitive
organic molecules (possibly including some "life" at the bacterial level) might
have originated and survived. The presence of this early water has been
hypothesized based on the discovery of ancient rocks contain the mineral Zircon
(see below).

Let us delve deeper into the history of Earth' first billion years, using as a guide
this diagram.
Since we conventionally decipher terrestrial history using rocks and fossils, this
would seem the "route to go" in describing this first Hadean Eon (which is
followed by the beginning of Archean time about 3.8 billion years ago, an Eon
that lasted until 2.5 b.y. ago, when the Proterozoic Eon [about 1.9 billion years in
duration] was initiated). Unfortunately, Hadean rocks of any kind are extremely
rare (Australia; Greenland) and discrete fossils from that Eon have yet to be
found, although indirect evidence for simple microbes exists. Much of what is
statable about this Eon is speculative.

If there was a magma ocean, the crust would have started to form from outlier
"rafts" that eventually were enclosed by the first thin solid crust that survived
remelting. From knowledge of other terrestrial planets, that crust was almost
certainly basalt-rich (a more general term is simatic, which refers to igneous
rocks low in silica and high in iron, magnesium, and calcium) in composition (the
idea of a thin floated feldspar anorthositic analog to the Moon has been
discounted by some planetologists [but remains an alternative]). As the crust
thickened, parts of it also were remelted repeatedly by large impacts and
probably also by internal thermal convection currents from the mantle.

From knowledge of differentiation mechanisms occurring in the younger Earth, it

seems plausible that here and there sialic (high in silica, aluminum, and sodium)
crust formed regionally. This crust could have compositions described as
rhyolitic, felsitic, andesitic. Conceivably cooling conditions might even have
formed granites, which are a common host of the accessory mineral Zircon (see
below). Another way to form sialic rocks is by metamorphism of sediments that
have been enriched in Si, Al, Na. Regardless of mechanism, the end result was
to develop clots of silica-enriched crust that rose above the general crustal
elevations - these would form nuclei (analogous to the term craton in the Earth's
present geology) that grew mainly by accretion to their boundaries (perhaps by
obduction or terrane addition (see latter half of Section 17), especially if plate
tectonics mechanisms developed early in Earth history.

Evidence favoring some early non-mafic crustal rocks is found in the discovery of
the mineral Zircon (a gemstone), ZrSiO4, at various localities, mainly Australia,
where non-igneous rocks have been found to contain this mineral as an
accessory component brought in from weathered older crystalline rocks. Zircon
only rarely forms in mafic rocks, and certainly not directly in any sedimentary
type, but is a common indicator of silicic igneous rocks, principally Granite. The
oldest individual zircon crystal dated so far (Uranium/Lead decay data obtained
using an ion microprobe) is from younger rocks, including conglomerates
deposited between 3.3 and 3.7 billion years ago, found in the Jack Hills in
Australia. This minute zircon's age is ~4.4 billion years, making it the oldest
known solid material derived from terrestrial rocks of very ancient ages. If so, this
and other zircons of somewhat younger ages presumably formed in sialic
igneous rocks, probably granite, that were then weathered, released their zircon
crystals, which survived and was incorporated in sedimentary rocks of varying
ages much later (the youngest only 2 billion years old). The Australian zircons
vary in age, with many being 4.0 to 4.3 billion years old; the one shown below is
the very crystal whose age is 4.4 billion years.

Here is the outcrop from which this zircon was recovered:

In zircon-bearing Granites worldwide, water in the magma is almost always
involved in the formation of this rock type. This association is one of two lines of
evidence for water in and perhaps on early Earth crust. The other is even more
diagnostic: the O18/O16 ratio determined for these early Zircons. That ratio is as
high as 7.4 for the oldest zircon yet found. The range of ages and their
corresponding O18/O16 ratios for dated Hadean zircons is expressed in this graph.
As discussed next, this implies that its parent igneous rock may have formed in
the presence of water.
Notice that the Jack Hills zircons and those from several other locations have
high O18/O16 ratios, commonly expressed as δO18. (The Oxygen isotopes are
analyzed using the ion microprobe along with an instrument called SHRIMP.)

Some have interpreted this as of great significance. High O18/O16 ratios (above
5)are characteristic of water in several environments (processes selectively drive
off the O16, being lighter and thus relatively enrich the heavier O18). The
suggestion of this higher ratio is that liquid water was present in the environment
in which the original (4.0+ b.y.) zircons crystallized. If this is ultimately proven, the
conclusion is that the Earth's initial crust cooled rapidly (in less than 100 million
years) and steam in the primitive atmosphere condensed to form bodies of water.
That water may have been present mainly in hydrothermal solutions that affected
the silicic igneous rocks (which would have formed as the end products of
magmatic differentiation) containing the zircons. But a growing number of
geoscientists take a larger leap and suggest that the water condensation at that
time was large enough to form into bodies that would have been lakelike or even
mini-oceanlike. Such waters became involved in igneous proceeses that led to
granites. If that proves correct, then conditions might have existed for very
primitive life to have started (see below) in surface/near surface settings (ponds
to oceans) much earlier than now believed; but since no rocks from the early
Hadean have been found, this remains a supposition.

Thus, the implication from these zircon ages and their elevated δO18 values (as
high as 7.4) is that sediments formed from erosion of the very early crust,
collected in the protoseas, were buried, melted, and produced zircon-bearing
sialic (silica-rich) igneous rocks including granite. If so, these rocks formed the
nucleus of one or more ancient continents were persisted above water long
enough to erode over time while releasing the zircons of various ages that are
now found in the sedimentary rocks of 3 to 3.5 b.y. age.

The oldest surviving rocks are about 3.8 to 3.95 billion years in age. These are
metamorphic or metasedimentary. Rocks older than that - basalts, granites,
probably also sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks - have seemngly all been
destroyed (but geologists still seek representatives of such older rocks).
Mechanisms for this destruction include bombardment, remelting, burial to still
inaccessible depths, metamorphism (which resets the age-dating isotope clock),
weathering/erosion, and possible subduction if the early crustal plates were set in
motion (see below). A thorough review article, "A Cool Early Earth?", by John W.
Valley, in the October 2005 issue of Scientific American summarizes the above
ideas stemming from zircon analysis.

One of the oldest surviving rock types is greenstone, which is metamorphosed

basalt. Archean greenstones are fairly common, as are Archean granites and
metamorphic gneisses:
A general model for continental crust, which had widespread development
throughout the Archean over much of the Earth outer layers, is indicated in this
diagram produced by Dr. Paul D. Lowman, Jr (author of Section 12 of this
Tutorial).

The closest actual example of this type of primitive crust is in the Pilbara district
of northern Australia (shown on page 6-15). We put up here a somewhat different
version of that scene which shows granitic plutons intruded into greenstones in a
block surrounded by younger rocks:
Dr. Lowman has also developed a three stage model highlighting the
commonalities among the four inner terrestrial planets; read the annotation in the
illustration for contextual applicability to the Earth.

The early continents were built around greenstone into which magmas,
differentiated as far as sialic granites, intruded. Sedimentary rocks formed on and
around continental nuclei; these could be metamorphosed by burial and heat into
a variety of metamorphic rocks including gneiss and even granites formed by
melting of those rocks. Thus, some number of individual continental masses
gradually increased in size; these, being lighter in density could rise above the
primitive oceans where their rocks were weathered, transported, and converted
into sediments that hardened and were themselves weathered or subjected to
forces that led to metamorphic rocks (The Rock Cycle; see page 2-1a). A crust
composed of heavier basalt within which were "continental islands" was probably
in place sometime in the first billion years. That crust was subjected to circulating
convection currents in the mantle of the hot Earth. This brought about fracturing
of the crust, upwelling of melted mantle, and lateral movements of the crustal
blocks dragged along by convection currents, i.e., the plate tectonics described
on page 2-1a.

It seems probable then that plate tectonics started in the first billion year period.
This figure below depicts a hypothetical early Earth distribution of protocontinents
which drifted by seafloor spreading until they collided into a supercontinent
(Rondinia); that single supercontinent then broke up (like the later Pangaea) and
its fragments made new individual continents - this process of coming together,
splitting, moving in various directions over the global surface, recombining,
resplitting, etc. probably has happened at least several times in Earth history.
Little has been said so far about the development of life on Earth. As mentioned
above, oceans may have existed almost from the beginning but were definitely
widespread by early Archean times. To appreciate the story of life's appearance
and subsequent development, we need to talk briefly about the history of Earth's
atmosphere.

At the very outset, hydrogen and helium were the dominant gases in the forming
Earth. As said above, these were largely blown away by solar winds. As the
Earth melted, it degassed volatiles from its interior through the hot or molten
surface. CO, CO2, NH3, NH4, N2, methane (CH4) and water vapor were the likely
principal gases that accumulated above the hot surface. Water vapor could have
condensed to liquid but probably did not build up into an extensive early ocean,
being more likely to revaporize as impacts continued. A dominant outlet was by
volcanic vents, some being released into any water bodies, similar to the modern
"black smokers" in today's oceans:
Most of the early Earth gases were released through land volcanism, following a
general pattern similar to modern conditions, except for the survival of any
released oxygen:

The Earth's atmosphere for at least the first two billion years was very oxygen-
poor and hence reducing. In time, N2 became the dominant constituent of the
atmospheric envelope that extended as a thick shell around the solid Earth.
Methane and carbon dioxide persisted for some time. The carbon dioxide was
utilized in part by organisms that developed photosynthesis capability.
Any oxygen released by volcanism was quickly combined with other elements, so
as to have only fleeting life in an atmosphere. Starting about 4 billion years ago,
much of this oxygen combined with iron that precipitated along with silicates to
form the banded iron formation (BIF) rock that are a hallmark of deposits until
about 2 billion years ago. This rock resulted from accumulations of ferrous iron
(Fe+2) in oceans and lakes (which were more green in color than today; ferrous
iron can produce that color as, for example, in a Coca-Cola glass bottle). The
iron readily combined with any available oxygen, so that the latter was always
destined to be caught up in the iron precipitates (Fe2O3) and thus didn't enter the
atmosphere. While BIF is a hallmark of sedimentary rock formations during this
extended period, other rocks also formed (shales; sandstones) but carbonates
(limestones) were much less commmon. Starting about 2.3 billion years ago,
oxygen levels and other factors led to common production of ferric oxides
(hematite) that made prominent red beds periodically to the present.
As will be shown in Section 20, the origin of life is still uncertain but several
models based on informed speculation have been proposed. In one (the
Miller/Urey experiment), simple organic molecules were produced from
atmospheric and dissolved constituents in the oceans that began to survive less
than 4 billion years ago. Another cites organic molecules in carbonaceous
meteorites. A third believes such molecules, and possibly even biologic
organisms were carried to Earth in comets (the "panspermia" model).
Regardless, the first living organisms that have been actually been observed are
found in rocks of about 3.55 billion years prior to the present. It is reasonable to
surmise that rocks several hundred million years older hosted microorganisms
but thermal processes have destroyed all traces; carbon isotope anomalies tend
to support this postulate of life in these older rocks. They were microscopic
bacteria in nature - these are numerically still the dominant form of life today. An
abundant single-celled prokaryotic (without a nucleus) type is cyanobacteria
(once misnamed "blue-green algae"). Colonies of trillions of these bacteria built
up cabbage-like structures called stromatolites. The bulk of a stromatolite colony
consists of layers of calcium carbonate interspersed with mattes deposited by the
cyanobacteria. Stromatolites still exist on Earth but are rare (mainly at two
localities in Australia).
The oldest fossil utilizing hard parts consisting of a tiny spherical shell dates at
about 3.1 b.y.:
Ancient rocks have disclosed other life forms including those that represent
different types of bacteria, along with primitive true algae. For about two billion
years after Earth's start, these bacteria and algae gradually developed the
capability of receiving their metabolic energy through sunlight, which evolved into
the process of photosynthesis. One of the by-products of photosynthesis is O2. At
first, this oxygen continued to combine with other elements but over time the
accumulation of released oxygen exceeded the capacity to precipitate in the
oceans and gradually built up a concentration in the atmosphere to its current
21% level. This had important consequences: O2, or ozone, developed by solar
UV reactions with normal oxygen in the upper atmosphere, providing a shield
that greatly reduced the amount of UV reaching the Earth's surface, so that
organisms sensitive to damaging ultraviolet rays could now begin to survive,
flourish, and diversify. Multicelled (eucaryotic and metazoic) organisms appeared
in the last billion plus years as the oxygen component of the atmosphere
increased. Respiration became possible as a metabolic source of energy in more
advanced life forms. These became prominent in the fossil record about 750
million years before the present and underwent an explosive evolution about 560
million years ago (Cambrian time).

Many of the topics covered above can be summarized in this diagram that shows
the main events and changes in the Earth's history:
Two more illustrations expand on the ideas in the above figure. The first is a
broadbrush overview of the Earth's history; the second uses the geologic time
scale as a matrix in which key events in life's evolution are stated:
Although some information is redundant in this next chart which concentrates on
Precambrian history, there are other new entries which may add to your
understanding of this time span which covers nearly 90% of Earth time.
One of the benchmarks of Phanerozoic life occurred near its beginning with the
great explosion of animal life forms in the Cambrian (Burgess shale fauna,
mention on page 20-12). A preview of this expansion was the Ediacaran fauna
(most creatures with hard parts) around 700 million years ago, as preserved in
Australian rocks.

Invertebrate and Plant Life in the Phanerozoic (all time after the Precambrian) is
summarized in these two diagrams:
 From H. Levin, The Earth through Time

Vertebrates can be traced back to the Ordovician. The first vertebrates were fish,
followed by amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. The evolutionary history
of mammals is encapsuled in this diagram:

The culmination of Earth history has been the appearance of creatures with
reasoning intellects - the humans. Although only illustrated for now, the following
diagram summarizes the main stages in the evolution of the hominids (humans)
over the past 5 million years (the Australopithecines are ancestral to the
hominids). Much more about the development of life on Earth and in the Solar
System in general is covered on page 20-12.
There are many Web sites that supplement and reenforce some of the ideas
presented on this page. Consult these select ones if you wish: 1) a summary of
the Hadean by S.R. Taylor of Australia; 2) a review of the significance of primitive
zircons appearing in the online Astrobiology Magazine; 3) Malaspina University
Geology group, Canada, 4) a general summary of Earth development produced
by the School of Ocean and Earth Sciences of Southhampton University; 5)
UCLA Astrobiology Center; and 6)The Evolution of Life site sponsored by the
University of Waikato in New Zealand..

Many of the features and processes that commonly operate on today's Earth,
and in the past, also have now been observed on other planets and their
satellites. This, again, is why Planetology has Terrestrial Geology as its
foundation and principal source of methodology. We usually identify a feature on
another planet by comparing its to similar looking and acting features on Earth.
So, the majority of Planetologists also are, or started as, Geologists; the others
have learned a lot of Geology to prep them as planetary specialists.

With this history of Earth as a planet, we can now turn our attention to the
nearest large planetary body, our own Moon, which provides an excellent
example of how scientists go about obtaining information about other solar
objects and interpreting the nature and characteristics of planets.