Earth history in 1 year – happy new year 2024 to everyone!

The tail end of the year is the time for some kind of a resume when we are going back in our memories and analyzing what was good and what was bad over the entire year. As a geography student I had to learn about the history of Earth,  which at some point can be compressed into…just one year! The period of one year is a good timescale unit, which can reflect the entire history of our planet comparing it to the period we are familiar with. Let’s show the standard calendar below and see how the particular days reflect the periods of Earth’s history.

Earth history in 1 year

January 1 – the “birth: of Earth from protoplanetary disk about 4.6 Billion years ago.
Until February 25 the environment of Earth was very chaotic and undertook an advanced evolution.
February 25 – the moment when the most simple forms of life appeared.
March 21 – the simplest photosynthesis started to occur.
May – first organisms able to reproduce.
July 15 – first multi-cellular organisms and cells with nuclei propagated on Earth. All these organisms took part in the Earth’s atmosphere development giving a way of further development of more advanced forms of life.
September 17 – Sexual reproduction started mixing genes paving the way for amazing diversity of life.
Early November – continental division starts to be recognizable, and first plants start to make a precarious foothold on land.
Mid-November – fungi colonized the soils.
November 18 – the Cambrian Explosion resulted in a burst complex of life and fishes swam to the sea.
November 20 – The oldest mountain ranges started to rise.
November 22 – plants came out on land.
November 24 – anthropods crawled across the land.
December 2 – first amphibians jump on into the sea.
December 5 – first reptiles observed on Earth.
December 12 – the Permian extinction known as the most deadly event in Earth’s history caused by Siberian volcanoes.
December 13 – dinosaurs appeared on Earth.
December 14 – mammals started to appear.
December 18 – The first birds appeared on Earth.
December 26  – Chixculub impact – dinosaurs are wiped out from the Earth.
December 27 – Grasses spread across the Earth. Alpine orogeny.
December 28 – first primates observed on Earth.
The History of Earth within 12 hours

December 31 17:18 – the first hominids appeared on Earth.
20:00  – Ice age begins on Earth.
23:00 – Homo neandertalensis appeared on Earth.
23:36 – Homo sapiens evolved.
23:55 – human civilization begins.
23:48:43 – Jesus Christus time.
23:59:40 – Christopher Columbus discovered the America.

1 second – 144 years

Mariusz Krukar

Links:

  1. https://francistapon.com/Travels/Continental-Divide-Trail/earth-s-history-compressed-in-one-year
  2. https://biomimicry.net/earths-calendar-year/
  3. https://geokansas.ku.edu/geologic-time-a-metaphor

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