Monday, May 8, 2017

20 Most Important Events in Earth's History

  • 4.560 Billion Years Ago
    The planet Earth forms from the protoplanetary disk of dust grains and rocks attracting by the force of gravity at the outer edge of the habitable zone in the accretion disc revolving around the young Sun
  • 4.533 Billion Years Ago
    Planet Earth and the hypothesized protoplanet Theia collide sending large number of moonlets into orbit around the Earth which eventually coalesce to form the Moon
  • 3.6 Billion Years Ago
    Prokaryotes, the first simple cells without nucleus and mitochondria, that use carbon dioxide as a carbon source and oxidize inorganic materials to extract energy, appear, probably in deep-sea thermal vents or atmosphere
  • 2.9 Billion Years Ago
    Photosynthesizing cyanobacteria, which use water and carbon dioxide as a reducing agent and produce oxygen as waste product, evolve, creating the oxygen-rich atmosphere
  • 2.1 Billion Years Ago
    Eukaryotes, complex cells which contain nucleus enclosed within membranes, derive from prokaryotes via fusion of some cells and free-living bacteria, which become mitochondria and start providing energy to the cell by converting sugars
  • 1.2 Billion Years Ago
    First simple multicellular organisms, mostly consisting of cell colonies of limited complexity, evolve independently in some groups of single cells, which allows organisms to exceed the size limits
  • 580 Million Years Ago
    The accumulation of atmospheric oxygen allows the formation of an ozone layer, which blocks ultraviolet radiation, permitting the colonisation of the land
  • 540 Million Years Ago
    The Cambrian explosion, the relatively rapid, lasting 70 million years, appearance of most major animal phyla accompanied by major diversification of organisms, begins
  • 435 Millions Years Ago
    The first primitive plants move onto land and rapidly diversify, having evolved from green algae living along the edges of lakes
  • 365 Million Years Ago
    First amphibians, four-limbed backboned tetrapods, evolve from the lobe-finned fishes, gradually gaining adaptations, such as lungs and nares, which will help them occupy land and give rise to reptiles and mammals
  • 320 Million Years Ago
    The first reptiles evolve from advanced reptiliomorph labyrinthodonts, a newt-like amphibians that gain scaly skin and begin laying eggs with hard shells outside the water
  • 220 Millions Years Ago
    Adelobasileus, the first known mammal, which resembles modern rats and has sweat glands, including those that are specialized to produce milk to nourish their young, evolves from reptiles called cynodonts
  • 200 Million Years Ago
    Pangaea, the large supercontinent, begins to rift into two continents: Laurasia, which contains North America and Eurasia, and other supercontinent - Gondwana, containing Africa, South America, India, Antarctica, and Australia
  • 199,6 Million Years Ago
    Triassic-Jurassic extinction event wipes out twenty percent of all marine families and all large non-dinosaurian archosaurs other than crocodilians on land, leaving the dinosaurs the dominant land animals
  • 155 Million Years Ago
    Archaeopteryx, one of the first birds and transitional fossil between feathered dinosaurs and modern birds, appears following evolution of some other early birds, such as Anchiornis and Aurornis
  • 130 Million Years Ago
    The first flowering plants, whose boast structures attract insects and other animals to spread pollen, which causes a major burst of animal evolution through co-evolution, appear
  • 65.5 Million Years Ago
    An asteroid 10 kilometers in diameter falls on the coast of Yucatán in Mexico and causes the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event with eradicating about half of all animal species, including the dinosaurs but excluding their descendants, the birds
  • 65 Million Years Ago
    Purgatorius, a rat-sized placental mammal with mass about 40 grams, becomes the earliest example of a primate or a proto-primate, giving rise to monkeys, apes and humans
  • 2.5 Million Years Ago
    Homo habilis, the earliest known species of the genus Homo, evolves from Hominidae in East Africa, beginning usage of primitive stone tools for hunting and work
  • 200 Thousand Years Ago
    Anatomically modern human, who has more gracile frames, reduced brow ridges and vertical forehead, evolve from archaic Homo sapiens in East Africa