Dr. GURU speaks,
The planet we live on, what we have called “our World”, was first formed 4.57 billion years ago during the formation of the Solar-System (our Galaxy being 13.6 billion years old). Although continually dynamic (tectonic-plate movements, volcanic eruptions, drastic climate changes as the planet began to cool, shifts in ocean circulation, and impacting asteroids and comets), it remained sterile for the first 200-500 million years of its life until volcanic water-vapour cooled sufficiently to liquefy and form the first oceans, allowing inanimate organic and inorganic molecules to coalesce in a ‘primordial soup’ to form the first primitive uni-cellular life.
The Earth contains Water and Carbon, amongst other things, essential elements in all living organisms on Earth. Gas from volcanoes is made up of 70% water. Using modern eruption rates, the volume of water venting from volcanoes since the Earth cooled over 4 billion years ago could have filled the oceans a hundred-fold. Earth’s large mass holds our atmosphere in its gravitation-pull. 500 million years after the oceans formed, Photosynthesising bacteria allowed the 'Ozone-Layer' to develop, protecting the planet and all life on it from harmful ultra-violet radiation and keeping-in essential heat (the ‘Green-House’ effect). Serendipity would have our planet orbiting the Sun at a distance accepting of such oceans and an atmosphere. It would be another 200-500 million years before multi-cellular life was established. The planet would then spend another 3 billion years (more than half its life) in relative stability, with little more than primitive ‘jelly-fish’ and ‘algae’ in its oceans.
Then, around 540 million years ago, multi-cellular plants began to habitat coastal land, increasing the filtration of organic Carbon into marine environments. This dramatically increased the diversity of multi-cellular marine life. It would take at least another 125 million years for this diversity to give life to what we call fish and true trees, and a further 55 million years for the first four-legged creatures. These eventually developed, over the following 130 million years, into the dinosaurs (who ruled Earth for about 160 million years). Birds only evolved in the last 30 million years of the dinosaur’s reign, but they clearly out-lived them.
The extinction event that killed so many of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, removing 20-25% of all the species on the planet at the time, was only the most recent of 5-20 mass extinction events that have ever occurred on the planet. Indeed, 99% of all the species that have ever existed on this planet are now extinct.
The fossil records stretch back as far as 3.8 billion years, and show hominids to have only existed on the planet in the last 5-8 million years. Indeed, our species – Homo sapiens – is a mere 200,000 years old.
A 5,250 year-old carved limestone tableau, with inscribed scenes of a victorious ruler and symbols, remains mankind’s oldest record of an established language and literature. This period demarcates what we call “pre-history” and “history”.
The Guru must now sleep.
