Hadean

The Hadean ( /ˈheɪdiən, heɪˈdiːən/ HAY-dee-ən, hay-

DEE-ən) is a geologic eon of the Earth pre-dating the Hadean Eon
4600–4000 million years ago
Archean. It began with the formation of the Earth about
4.6 billion years ago and ended, as defined by the Had'n Archean Proterozoic Pha.
International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), 4 billion
years ago.[1] As of 2016, the ICS describes its status as
"informal".[2] Geologist Preston Cloud coined the term in
1972, originally to label the period before the earliest-
known rocks on Earth.[3][4] W. Brian Harland later coined
an almost synonymous term, the "Priscoan period", from
priscus, the Latin word for 'ancient'.[5] Other, older texts
refer to the eon as the Pre-Archean.[6][7]
Artist's impression of a Hadean landscape

Contents Geologic time scale

0— Ceno
Etymology Meso
Phanerozoic
–
Subdivisions Paleo
-500 —
Hadean rocks
– Neo
Atmosphere and oceans
-1000 —
See also
–
References Meso
Proterozoic
-1500 —
Further reading
–
External links
-2000 —
Paleo
–
Etymology -2500 —
Neo
–
"Hadean" (from Hades, the Greek god of the underworld,
and the underworld itself) describes the hellish conditions -3000 — Meso
then prevailing on Earth: the planet had just formed and
– Archean
was still very hot owing to its recent accretion, the Paleo
abundance of short-lived radioactive elements, and -3500 —

frequent collisions with other Solar System bodies. –

Eo
-4000 —
Subdivisions –
Hadean
-4500 —
Since few geological traces of this eon remain on Earth,
there is no official subdivision. However, the Lunar Scale: millions of years
geologic timescale embraces several major divisions
relating to the Hadean, so these are sometimes used in an informal sense to refer to the same periods of time on
Earth.
 The Lunar divisions are:

Pre-Nectarian, from the formation of the Moon's crust

(4,533 million years ago) up to about 3,920 million years ago.
Nectarian ranging from 3,920 million years ago up to about
3,850 million years ago, in a time when the Late Heavy
Bombardment, according to that theory, was declining.

In 2010, an alternative scale was proposed that includes the addition

of the Chaotian and Prenephelean Eons preceding the Hadean, and
divides the Hadean into three eras with two periods each. The
Paleohadean era consists of the Hephaestean (4.5–4.4 Ga) and the
Jacobian periods (4.4–4.3 Ga). The Mesohadean is divided into the
Canadian (4.3–4.2 Ga) and the Procrustean periods (4.2–4.1 Ga). The
Neohadean is divided into the Acastan (4.1–4.0 Ga) and the
Promethean periods (4.0–3.9 Ga).[8] As of February 2017, this has
Backscatter electron micrograph of
not been adopted by the IUGS.
detrital zircons from the Hadean
(4.404 ± 0.008 Ga) metasediments of
the Jack Hills, Narryer Gneiss Hadean rocks
Terrane, Western Australia
In the last decades of the 20th century geologists identified a few
Hadean
rocks Life timeline
from Ice Ages

western 0—
Quaternary Flowers
Primates ←Earliest apes
P Birds Mammals
– ha Plants Dinosaurs
K aroo
n ←Tetrapoda
A ndean
-500 — e Arthropods Molluscs
r ←Cambrian explosion
o ←Ediacara biota
Cryogenian
– z
o
←Earliest animals
i
←Earliest plants
-1000 — c Multicellular
life
–
←Sexual reproduction
P
Artist's impression of Earth and r
-1500 — o
Moon towards the end of the t
– e
Hadean, when the first water vapor r Eukaryotes
clouds and oceans appeared on o
-2000 — z
Earth o
i
H uronian – c
←Oxygen crisis
Greenland, northwestern Canada, and Western ←Atmospheric oxygen
-2500 —
Australia. In 2015, traces of carbon minerals
interpreted as "remains of biotic life" were found – Photosynthesis
in 4.1-billion-year-old rocks in Western Pongola

Australia.[9][10] -3000 — A
r
c
–h
The oldest dated zircon crystals, enclosed in a e
metamorphosed sandstone conglomerate in the -3500 — n
a
←Earliest oxygen
Jack Hills of the Narryer Gneiss Terrane of Single-celled
Western Australia, date to 4.404 ± 0.008 Ga.[11] – life
This zircon is a slight outlier, with the oldest
-4000 — ←Earliest life
consistently-dated zircon falling closer to 4.35
H Water
 H Water
Ga[11]—around 200 million years after the –a
d ←Earliest water
hypothesized time of the Earth's formation.
-4500 — ea ←Earth (−4540)
(million nyears ago) Clickable
In many other areas, xenocryst (or relict) Hadean
(
zircons enclosed in older rocks indicate that
younger rocks have formed on older terranes
and have incorporated some of the older material. One example occurs in the Guiana shield from the
Iwokrama Formation of southern Guyana where zircon cores have been dated at 4.22 Ga.[12]

Atmosphere and oceans

A sizable quantity of water would have been in the material that formed the Earth.[13] Water molecules would
have escaped Earth's gravity more easily when it was less massive during its formation. Hydrogen and helium
are expected to continually escape (even to the present day) due to atmospheric escape.

Part of the ancient planet is theorized to have been disrupted by the impact that created the Moon, which
should have caused melting of one or two large regions of the Earth. Earth's present composition suggests that
there was not complete remelting as it is difficult to completely melt and mix huge rock masses.[14] However, a
fair fraction of material should have been vaporized by this impact, creating a rock vapor atmosphere around
the young planet. The rock vapor would have condensed within two thousand years, leaving behind hot
volatiles which probably resulted in a heavy CO2 atmosphere with hydrogen and water vapor. Liquid water
oceans existed despite the surface temperature of 230 °C (446 °F) because at an atmospheric pressure of above
27 atmospheres, caused by the heavy CO2 atmosphere, water is still liquid. As cooling continued, subduction
and dissolving in ocean water removed most CO2 from the atmosphere but levels oscillated wildly as new
surface and mantle cycles appeared.[15]

Studies of zircons have found that liquid water must have existed as long ago as 4.4 billion years ago, very
soon after the formation of the Earth.[16] This requires the presence of an atmosphere. The cool early Earth
theory covers a range from about 4.4 to about 4.1 billion years.

A September 2008 study of zircons found that Australian Hadean rock holds minerals pointing to the existence
of plate tectonics as early as 4 billion years ago (approximately 600 million years after Earth's
formation).[17][18] If this is true, the time when Earth finished its transition from having a hot, molten surface
and atmosphere full of carbon dioxide, to being very much like it is today, can be roughly dated to about 4.0
billion years ago. The actions of plate tectonics and the oceans trapped vast amounts of carbon dioxide,
thereby reducing the greenhouse effect and leading to a much cooler surface temperature and the formation of
solid rock, and possibly even life.[17][18]

See also
Chaotian (geology) – Proposed era of, or eon preceding, the Hadean eon
Formation and evolution of the Solar System – Formation of the Solar System by gravitational
collapse of a molecular cloud and subsequent geological history
Hadean zircon – The oldest-surviving crustal material from the Earth's earliest geological time
period
History of Earth – The development of planet Earth from its formation to the present day – the
first sections describe the formation of the Earth
Oldest dated rocks – Includes rocks over 4 billion years old from the Hadean Eon
Precambrian – The earliest part of Earth's history: 4600–541 million years ago
Timeline of natural history
References
1. "International Chronostratigraphic Chart" (https://stratigraphy.org/chart). International
Commission on Stratigraphy. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
2. Ogg, J. G.; Ogg, G.; Gradstein, F. M. (2016). A Concise Geologic Time Scale: 2016. Elsevier.
p. 20. ISBN 978-0-444-63771-0.
3. Cloud, Preston (1972). "A working model of the primitive Earth". American Journal of Science.
272 (6): 537–548. Bibcode:1972AmJS..272..537C (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1972AmJ
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4. Bleeker, W. (2004). "10. Toward a "natural" Precambrian time scale". In Gradstein, Felix M.;
Ogg, James G.; Smith, Alan G. (eds.). A Geologic Time Scale 2004 (https://books.google.com/b
ooks?id=rse4v1P-f9kC&pg=PA145#v=onepage&q&f=false). Cambridge, England, UK:
Cambridge University Press. p. 145.
5. Oxford Dictionary, "Priscoan" (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/priscoan)
6. Shaw, D.M. (1975). "Early History of the Earth". Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study
Institute. Leicester: John Wiley (London): 33–53.
7. Jarvis, Gary T.; Campbell, Ian H. (December 1983). "Archean komatiites and geotherms:
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doi:10.1029/GL010i012p01133 (https://doi.org/10.1029%2FGL010i012p01133).
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36717_2010036774.pdf) (PDF). Solid Earth. 26 January 2010.
9. Borenstein, Seth (19 October 2015). "Hints of life on what was thought to be desolate early
Earth" (http://apnews.excite.com/article/20151019/us-sci--earliest_life-a400435d0d.html).
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10. Bell, Elizabeth A.; Boehnike, Patrick; Harrison, T. Mark; et al. (19 October 2015). "Potentially
biogenic carbon preserved in a 4.1 billion-year-old zircon" (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2
015/10/14/1517557112.full.pdf) (PDF). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. Washington, D.C.:
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s://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26483481). Retrieved 2015-10-20.
11. Wilde, Simon A.; Valley, John W.; Peck, William H.; Graham, Colin M. (2001). "Evidence from
detrital zircons for the existence of continental crust and oceans on the Earth 4.4 Gyr ago".
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Fraga, Leda; Reis, Nelson; Betiollo, Leandro (2013-12-01). "Guyana: the Lost Hadean crust of
South America?" (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276188729_Guyana_the_Lost_Ha
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Further reading
Hopkins, Michelle; Harrison, T. Mark; Manning, Craig E. (2008), "Low heat flow inferred from >4
Gyr zircons suggests Hadean plate boundary interactions", Nature, 456 (7221): 493–496,
Bibcode:2008Natur.456..493H (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008Natur.456..493H),
doi:10.1038/nature07465 (https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fnature07465), PMID 19037314 (https://pu
bmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19037314).
Valley, John W.; Peck, William H.; King, Elizabeth M. (1999), "Zircons Are Forever" (http://www.
geology.wisc.edu/~valley/zircons/zircon_home.html), The Outcrop for 1999, University of
Wisconsin-Madison, retrieved January 10, 2006 – Evidence from detrital zircons for the
existence of continental crust and oceans on the Earth 4.4 Gyr ago.
Wilde, S. A.; Valley, J. W.; Peck, W. H. & Graham, C. M. (2001), "Evidence from detrital zircons
for the existence of continental crust and oceans on the Earth 4.4 Gyr ago", Nature, 409 (6817):
175–178, Bibcode:2001Natur.409..175W (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001Natur.409..17
5W), doi:10.1038/35051550 (https://doi.org/10.1038%2F35051550), PMID 11196637 (https://pu
bmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11196637).
Wyche, S.; Nelson, D. R. & Riganti, A. (2004), "4350–3130 Ma detrital zircons in the Southern
Cross Granite–Greenstone Terrane, Western Australia: implications for the early evolution of
the Yilgarn Craton", Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, 51 (1): 31–45,
Bibcode:2004AuJES..51...31W (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AuJES..51...31W),
doi:10.1046/j.1400-0952.2003.01042.x (https://doi.org/10.1046%2Fj.1400-0952.2003.01042.x).
Carley, Tamara L.; et al. (2014), "Iceland is not a magmatic analog for the Hadean: Evidence
from the zircon record", Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 405 (1): 85–97,
 Bibcode:2014E&PSL.405...85C (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014E&PSL.405...85C),
doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2014.08.015 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.epsl.2014.08.015).
Marchi, S.; et al. (2014), "Widespread mixing and burial of Earth's Hadean crust by asteroid
impacts", Nature, 511: 578–582, doi:10.1038/nature13539 (https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fnature13
539)

External links
Palaeos.org: Hadean eon (http://www.palaeos.org/Hadean)
Peripatus.nz: Description of the Hadean Era (https://web.archive.org/web/20071103114128/htt
p://www.peripatus.gen.nz/paleontology/Hadean.html)
Astronoo.com: Hell of the Hadean (http://www.astronoo.com/en/articles/hadean.html)
Hadean (chronostratigraphy scale) (https://ghkclass.com/ghkC.html?hadean)

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