There is a lot of information about the planet that we take for granted. Land has always been a feature of the earth. Every ocean has unique features that distinguish it from other planets. The consensus among scientists is that life began in the oceans and evolved in such a way that it was able to later emerge onto land.
But what if all of those assumptions are wrong? A new study that began in Australia in 2018 casts doubt on a lot of what we think we know about the early earth, as well as the development of life. The study looked at the evidence from an exposed outcrop of what was ocean crust 3.2 billion years ago and came to a startling conclusion: the early Earth may have once been all but entirely covered in water!
More research into these findings may very well reveal that the giant landmasses that became today’s continents may not have always been present in the earth’s history. It may also show that life developed in the earth’s only oceans for the simple reason that there was no other environment present on the planet; maybe life actually could evolve in places that do not have an abundance of water. Furthermore, who knows what further implications there may be if more scientific research confirms that the early planet was a water world?
To learn more about the conditions of the early earth and the development of life, as well as how this study challenges those ideas, keep reading.
The Primeval Earth Was A Very Different Place Than It Is Today
Our planet has continuously been changing ever since it first formed about five billion years ago. The planet that we know and love today, with an atmospheric composition that is ideally suitable to support life and an abundance of plants and animals, is not what the earth has always looked like.
The earth has gone through periods of massive bombardment from asteroids as well as ice ages that caused the entire planet to become a frozen snowball. It has seen numerous mass extinctions and the re-flourishing of life, as well as changing atmospheric conditions, from what would be toxic to us to what is perfect for us to breathe.