GEL 1: Lecture 1: Origin of Earth & Early Earth

(Ch. 1, specifically p. 27-32

& Ch. 13, p. 434-435)
Where did Earth come from? How do planets form?
Bottom line: Earth and the rest of the planets in our solar system formed from the remnant
gas and dust left over from the formation of our star, the sun.
(Remember, our star system is one of a hundred billion star systems in the Milky Way galaxy
and the Milky Way is one of a hundred billion galaxies that comprise the universe.)

Solar Nebula Hypothesis

The solar nebula hypothesis proposes that the planets were formed from the disk of gas
and dust that surrounded the sun as it formed. (i.e., planets develop as a byproduct of
star formation from nebula.)
- hypothesis based in fundamental laws of physics and chemistry

Nebula are clouds of gas and dust in space that mark the birthplace of stars ("star
nurseries").
- the dust is composed of small amounts of various ices, oxides, carbon and some heavier
elements such as iron. (size of the dust is about the size of smoke particles, just a few
atoms big)
- the gas is almost entirely hydrogen (which you know as the simplest element, consisting
of one proton and one electron).
- hydrogen makes up about 75% of all the mass in the universe.

Simplified stages in the formation of the solar system . . .

(you just need to know the general ideas of this model, not the specifics)
- this process happens over tens to hundreds of millions of years . . .
1) Begin with a slowly spinning cloud of gas and dust (solar nebula) within the Milky Way
galaxy.
2) The nebular cloud begins to collapse toward its rotating center under the influence of
gravity. The combination of gravity concentrating mass in the center of rotation, along
with angular momentum of the rotating nebula generates a centrifugal (outward
directed) effect that causes the cloud to collapse to a central plane (this will eventually
become the plane of the solar system.)
3) As the cloud collapses, gravity supplies the energy to heat up and compress the center,
which eventually becomes the “protosun”.
4) The revolving masses of gas and dust became trapped in stable orbits around the
protosun, forming lanes of concentration or “rings”

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5) As more space debris is added to the mass of the protosun, the internal heat and
pressure increase. When a certain mass is reached, nuclear fusion occurs with the
fusing of hydrogen into helium, releasing energy and stopping the contraction. When the
sun’s internal fusion reactor turns on, the protosun becomes the true sun.
6) Within the circulating rings of concentrated material, temperatures cool to the point
where matter begins to condense into larger and larger particles.
7) Constant collisions cause the boulder- to asteroid-size particles to eventually coalesce
under the force of gravity to become small bodies of matter called planetesimals.
The collisional growth of planets by constant bombardment is called accretion. As
planetesimals coalesced, their increased gravity would have helped to attract nearby
matter and hold it all together.
8) Eventually these planetesimals grow into proto-planets, which in turn evolve into true
planets.
The original shapes of the proto-planets were irregular, and heat built up due to frictional
heating through constant collisions. These hot, 'soft' early planets eventually were
shaped into spheres under the force of gravity.

The formation of our sun, the eight planets, over 130 moons, and assorted space debris
such as comets and asteroids occurred 4.6 billion years ago, determined by dating of
radioactive elements within meteorites found on Earth.
Some meteorites, chunks of rock or metal that fall to Earth from space, are remnants of
the primordial solar nebular material that didn't become incorporated into the sun,
planets or moons.

So, planets, moons, asteroids and comets form as a byproduct of star formation from
nebulas. They are the ‘debris’ that didn't get incorporated into the newly formed star
at the center (which accumulated >99% of the mass of the entire solar system).

Differentiation and Evolution of Planet Earth

Planets are born hot due to the accumulation of frictional heat from constant
bombardment by debris during accretion. The debris contains radioactive elements like
uranium, thorium and potassium. The radioactive decay of these elements emits heat.
Planets spend their entire lives releasing this heat back into space and progressively
cooling through time.
Planets evolve by progressive differentiation (separation) of materials according to
density, under the influence of internal heating.
- during planetary differentiation, denser materials fall in toward the core of the planet
while lighter, less dense materials accumulate toward the outer surface.

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In the case of the Earth's differentiation, heavy metals like iron collapsed toward the
center of the planet, while lighter materials (silicon and oxygen, which together
comprise ‘rock’) floated upward.
- the lightest materials comprising the ultrathin hydrosphere and atmosphere are held
near the surface by gravity.
Differentiation results in most planets having an interior dense core, a surrounding less-
dense mantle, and a thin, least-dense surficial crust. Thin veneers of a hydrosphere
and atmosphere blanket the crust.

What provided the internal energy for differentiation to occur? What was the source of heat?

As planets grow, heat builds up in their interiors due to:

1) frictional heating through constant collisions (kinetic energy of infalling matter converts
to heat energy: called heat of formation and is an important source of heat in the early
stages of planets)
2) accumulation of radioactive elements (U, Th, K) that spontaneously decay to form heat

Thus, planets in their early stages are very hot and this heat energy is what drives the
differentiation process.

The young Earth was hot enough for the uppermost several tens of kilometers to be
covered by a ‘magma ocean’. It took several hundred million years for heat to be
released to space so that the magma ocean could cool enough to form solid rock. This
‘Hadean Era’ dominates the first 600-700 million years of Earth history.
- rafts of solid rock drifted in the magma ocean, only to collapse back into the molten sea
to be melted once again. Remnant debris from the nebula pummeled the molten surface
sending up a hot spray of molten rock and hot gases that spattered back down to the
surface. Early Earth: no life, poisonous atmosphere, accumulating mass by sweeping up
remnant debris still orbiting the sun.

About 4.5 b.y. ago, when Earth was early in its magma ocean phase, it was hit by a Mars-
size object. Both the impactor and much of Earth was melted and vaporized during the
collision. Much of the debris was blasted outward into space, some of it collapsed into
Earth via gravity, and some went into orbit around the Earth.
The orbiting debris re-accreted into what we now call the Moon. Evidence for the timing of
the origin of the Moon is the age of the oldest lunar rocks, 4.48 b.y. old.
(Puu Oo analog - magma ocean outgassing & cooling)
So the young Earth now had a moon and was progressively giving off heat to space through
the magma ocean, cooling and differentiating. The entire differentiation process on
Earth probably occurred by about 4.0 billion years ago.

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The oldest rocks on Earth are about 4.0 b.y. old (located in northwest Canada) - by then,
enough material had apparently accumulated on Earth's surface that resisted being
recycled back down into the molten interior, forming Earth's crust. This is likely a
consequence of the Earth losing enough heat to space so that a thin, primitive crust
could form.

Where did the early hydrosphere and atmosphere come from?

Not only do volcanoes spew enormous amounts of ash and lava, they also emanate copious
quantities of water vapor, CO2, SO2, NO2 and other gases by the process of volcanic
outgassing.
Earth's original atmosphere was derived by outgassing from widespread volcanism as the
oceans of molten rock on Earth's surface began to solidify during its initial heat loss.
- early atmosphere likely rich in carbon dioxide and water vapor plus other reactive gases
expelled by volcanoes. (oxygen didn't become a part of the atmosphere till about 2 b.y.
ago due to the evolution of photosynthetic organisms)

At some point, as the Earth cooled, the water vapor in the early atmosphere began to
condense and fall as torrential rain, eventually building up to form the world’s first
oceans. (perhaps as early as 3.9-4.0 b.y.a.)

Where did the original water molecules in the Earth's interior originate?
Comets - basically 'dirty snowballs' - bombarded the Earth early in its history and likely
contributed huge amounts of water to the interior of the planet. This water was
subsequently outgassed by volcanism to contribute to our earliest atmosphere and
hydrosphere.
So some of the H and O atoms in your body and in the water you bathe in and drink, very
likely originally arrived on Earth within comets. Those atoms were blasted out of an
ancestral volcano to be incorporated into the atmosphere, hydrosphere and, with time,
the biosphere.

By about 3.5 b.y.a., after liquid water was established on the Earth’s surface and after the
bombardment by meteorite debris from the early solar system died down, life arose.
- first life was bacterial and fossil evidence exists to document the appearance
- first bacteria were also anaerobic since no free oxygen existed in Earth’s early primitive
atmosphere (oxygen would become part of the atmosphere later, ironically generated by life
via photosynthesis)

There are two features on Earth that make it a truly unique planet in the solar system: 1) liquid
water covers more than 70% of the Earth’s surface, and 2) life exists in countless forms
(including humans who are capable of physically altering the planet).