It's no secret that the current distribution of continents is just a snapshot in the history of our planet. From the birth of the Earth 4.5 billion years ago until today, the drift of tectonic plates has determined the evolution and development of the planet. Without global changes, the Earth would be a lifeless desert. It's not just people who travel. And Spitsbergen is a clear confirmation of this. This small piece of land has traveled 12,000 kilometers over the past 600 million years: from the south pole to the north.

Interesting? Let's follow his path together. So, at the beginning of the story: 600 million years ago Spitsbergen was covered with ice of the Vendian period at the 60th parallel south latitude. There was no land life yet. The shallow waters of the seas were inhabited by vendobionts - soft-bodied creatures - the first known and widespread multicellular animals. Thousands of specimens of various representatives of this fauna are now known, but none of them show any damage or bite marks; Apparently, at that time there were no predators, or indeed animals that fed on large pieces of food. Therefore, the Vendian biota is often called the “Ediacaran Garden” - by analogy with the Garden of Eden, where no one ate anyone. The situation of the Garden of Eden, as it should be, did not last long: at the end of the Vendian, the Vendobionts completely died out, leaving no direct descendants.

From the Cambrian to the Silurian period (530-430 million years ago), Spitsbergen moved towards the equator, periodically becoming covered with water from tropical seas. A skeletal revolution occurs on Earth and almost all types of animals appear. Plants come to land, and the most ancient vertebrates appear in the seas. Corals and trilobites reign in the waters of Spitsbergen.

Devonian period (390 million years ago) - Spitsbergen is located at 25 degrees north latitude. The era of deserts has arrived on Earth. The first spiders, insects and ammonites appear. Towards the end of the period, mass extinction of species occurs.

The Carboniferous period finds the archipelago at the 30th parallel of northern latitude. The climate is like the Caribbean now. Reptiles have appeared, and tropical rainforest is growing on Svalbard. In the Permian period, the islands go under water again, and the great Permian-Triassic extinction begins on Earth. The most ancient dinosaurs appeared in the Triassic and Jurassic periods. Svalbard is covered by the cold waters of the coastal seas, continuing to move north.

Cretaceous period. Spitsbergen is again above the water and has reached 60 degrees north latitude. The Earth has a humid climate and forests grow right up to the poles. Flowering plants appeared.

Tertiary period. The archipelago has climbed all the way to the 83rd parallel, but is still covered with forest, similar in appearance to our taiga. The climate is changing and mass extinction is occurring again.

Quaternary period - present. Spitsbergen has descended a little to the south - to the 79th parallel of northern latitude. A man appeared. Glaciation has set in again.

A. Yu. Rozanov

What happened 600 million years ago

USSR ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Executive editor Academician B. S. Sokolov

Reviewers:

Dr. Biol. Sciences V. N. Shimansky Candidate of Sciences geol.-min. Science M. A. Fedonkin

Introduction

In the history of the development of life on Earth, there were several events that can be considered cardinal. Not to mention the origin of life itself, about which there are many hypotheses, very important in history were:

Transition from prokaryotes (or anucleate single-celled organisms) to eukaryotes (single-celled organisms with a nucleus);

The transition from unicellular organisms to multicellular ones;

Acquisition by organisms of the ability to build a skeleton.

This is exactly what it's about last event, which occurred about 600 million years ago, is discussed in our book. This boundary is usually called the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary in the specialized literature (Fig. 1).

The time from which organisms began to build a skeleton until the present day is called the Phanerozoic. It is this Phanerozoic history of the organic world that has been studied most reliably, since from the moment skeletal organisms appeared, they began to be easily buried in rocks, and during geological surveys, experts discover the remains of these skeletons in large quantities. For a long time, humanity gained knowledge about the history of the organic world, as a rule, only by studying organic remains from Phanerozoic rocks.

Until recently, all paleontology and historical geology courses around the world were equipped with information about the evolution of life almost exclusively from Phanerozoic history. However, the more material accumulated according to the most early stages Phanerozoic, the exceptional richness of the fauna of the early Cambrian became increasingly clear. IN recent years It became clear that almost all types of organisms that exist today also existed then. Naturally, a question arose! “Were they there before? And why don’t we find their remains in more ancient layers?”

It is very difficult for a person who evaluates the duration of various phenomena on the time scale of his life to perceive millions and billions of years. However, to give an idea of ​​the rate of change in organic world we will have to consider the time factor precisely in such categories as millions and billions of years. How large these numbers are can be imagined based on some comparisons.

From the moment of its appearance on Earth, humanity has gone through its entire history in just over 1 million years, and the first life on Earth appeared more than 3-3.5 billion years ago. The well-known mammoths became extinct a long time ago, but that was only about 10 thousand years ago, and the famous dinosaurs disappeared from the face of the Earth about 65-70 million years ago.

Rice. 1. Geochronological scale. The interval around the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary is shown in more detail on the right.

But let's return to the Cambrian-Precambrian boundary. It is probably appropriate to remember that today the concept of “Precambrian-Cambrian boundary” has a very definite, real, tangible meaning for all geologists and paleontologists. This happened because scientists were able to develop a principle for its implementation and are currently concerned only with choosing the best standard in one of the regions of the world. But if you go back 20-25 years ago, the picture was completely different.

A special symposium in Paris in 1957 brought together the world's greatest experts in the stratigraphy and paleontology of the late Precambrian and early Cambrian. Many different options for the possible recognition of this boundary have been put forward. Moreover, most of all they spoke about the need to take into account various kinds of geological phenomena, such as angular unconformities, breaks, glacial deposits, and the least hope was for the paleontological method. There were only rare enthusiasts in the person of the French G. A. Schuber and P. Hupe and the American G. Wheeler, who called for justice to be given to paleontological data.

The conclusion of the symposium in Paris was extremely pessimistic. The decisions stated that the symposium does not consider itself competent to propose a standard series in which the question of the lower boundary of the Cambrian can be resolved unambiguously, and generally does not consider it possible to resolve this question to any extent at the present time.

But the next 10 years led to dramatic changes in the attitude of specialists to the problem of the Cambrian and Precambrian. In 1962, a group of very young Soviet specialists from the Geological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, after analyzing the material, suggested that the problem was much simpler than it seemed to experienced specialists.

Firstly, they showed, only the paleontological method can be used to solve this problem. And secondly, they showed that there is a boundary at which very many groups of fossils acquire the ability to build a skeleton, and, thus, this boundary is well recognized and can be accepted as the desired boundary. Senior colleagues said that such simplicity in solving a problem is characteristic of youth and that, probably, the situation is, of course, much more complicated.

In 1966, academician. V.V. Menner wrote that “there are not two specialists who would have a common opinion on this issue” (meaning the question of the Cambrian-Precambrian boundary), V.V. Menner was obviously right and wrong at the same time. Indeed, scientists had very different opinions, but these young specialists certainly had one opinion at that time. In the same year, their joint monograph was published, and the very next year, 1967, at the All-Union Meeting in Ufa regarding the report on the Cambrian-Precambrian boundary made by these specialists, it was said that this was so obvious that there was no need to break into open doors.

But the ideas of Soviet researchers on this matter at that time were not yet shared by their foreign colleagues. In 1966, during my stay in England, the then president of the Cambrian subcommission of the International Stratigraphic Commission, James Stubblefield, discussing the results of research carried out in the USSR, proposed organizing an international excursion to Yakutia, where the best sections of the transitional strata from Precambrian to Cambrian were located. He believed that the correctness of the conclusions made by Soviet specialists should be confirmed by actual demonstration on the spot. The skepticism of foreign experts can only now be understood, since in those years, including during the Paris Symposium, materials on Siberia, Mongolia, China and Newfoundland were not known. Scientists around the world learned that the most representative sections are located in these regions only later, in the 70s and 80s.

A serious milestone in the history of research on the Cambrian-Precambrian boundary was the publication of a major monograph by Soviet specialists, “The Tommotian Stage and the Problem lower limit Cambrian”, This book described numerous materials on Siberia, including all the ancient fauna, and analyzed the entire world material that existed at that time. This work has become a reference book for all researchers, Soviet and foreign, dealing with the problem of the Cambrian-Precambrian boundary. It was in this work that all the main theoretical principles were formulated, which later served as the basis for the decisions of the International Working Group on the Cambrian-Precambrian Boundary, created in 1972 in Montreal at the International Geological Congress on the initiative of academicians V.V. Menner and B.S. Sokolov and prof. M. Glessner. More than 10 years will pass, and this book will be republished in the USA, and foreign specialists they will call it “our bible.”

Since 1973, when the International Working Group first visited the Siberian open-pit mines, a huge amount of work has been done research work as the most Working group, and national working groups. In 1979 in Cambridge and in 1983 in Bristol, the results were summed up and the basic principles of drawing the border were formulated. The level became clear to everyone, and all that remained was to select a reference cut. And after many years of selection, there are only three candidates left: Siberia, Newfoundland and China. But, as the reader understands, choosing a standard is a task that goes far beyond the scope of a simple scientific task. When choosing stratigraphic standards, various motives play a role, such as accessibility, preservation, etc.

The title of the book gives the figure 600 million years ago. But the reader should be lenient about this figure, since the real absolute dating of the Cambrian-Precambrian boundary is still not very clear, and the difference in ideas is up to 70 million years, and maybe even a little more.

In the most famous recent textbooks, reports and guides, the figure of 570 million years was adopted. But this is some kind of average idea, which rather reflects our temporary perception of this milestone than the real state of affairs.

The most difficult moment in dating the Cambrian-Precambrian boundary was that the figures obtained from rocks actually located on the Cambrian-Precambrian boundary in classical sections of Siberia were considered to be of poor quality and actually amounted to 520-530 million years, which was usually considered to be the lower Middle Cambrian. Other values, close to 570-550 million years, as a rule, were obtained from rocks whose stratigraphic position was not well proven.

(The original text has been replaced by revision 4)

Rice. 1 Evolution of planet Earth. On the left is part of the Sun’s core, “ejected” 600 million years ago - the “newborn” Earth. In the middle is a “plasticine planet”. On the right is a modern globe.

Birth of the Earth

Solar system before the appearance of the Earth:
Pluto – Neptune – Uranus – Saturn – Jupiter - “ Stone belt Ceres - Mars - Sun

The “total” gravitational field of the planets moving away to a critical distance provoked another ejection of a small part of the Sun’s core. The ejection formed into a ball and flashed with bright light. The luminous star, the newborn Earth, moved very far away, and, having reached the orbit of Uranus, returned to the Sun, made a half revolution around it, and again flew away in an elliptical orbit. But gradually the orbit of the star - the Earth - becomes smaller and smaller until it becomes a circular orbit, very close to the Sun. Soon this small star went out, turning into a planet.

This is how the planet Earth was born. (Fig. 1 left) As matter arises, the orbits of the planets move away from the Sun.

Age of the Earth

The escaped part of the Sun's core, the future Venus, flying past the Earth in an elongated elliptical orbit, scorched it with radioactive radiation. This happened 410 million years ago.

The escaped part of the Sun's core, the future Mercury, also scorched the Earth with “black” radiation. This happened 220 million years ago.

It was at these times, 410 and 220 million years ago, that scientists discovered very high radioactivity in the layers of the earth. If we take into account these two figures, and the known distance of the orbits of the Earth, Venus and Mercury from the Sun, it turns out that the approximate age of the Earth is about 600 million years.

Unlike the giant planets, the terrestrial planets, due to their small sizes, had great difficulties with the birth of satellites. Mars was almost torn apart when the planet's satellite was ejected. Venus and Mercury, “pressed” by the rapidly growing mass of the Sun, were unable to have satellites at all.

Plasticine planet

Our planet, many millions of years ago, was not at all the same as it is now, but much smaller, and not only in diameter, but also in mass.

The continent of Pangea was indeed a whole continent, but not an island in the Panthalassa Ocean, but was the earth’s crust of a planet with a smaller diameter. That is, the continents that exist today are “fragments” of the previously existing entire earth’s crust, a much smaller planet than the modern Earth.

Let's do an experiment. For this we need a globe and multi-colored plasticine.
Let's make a plasticine ball, much smaller in size than a globe.
One by one, placing plasticine plates on the globe, we will make patterns of the continents.
After that, we try to place the patterns of the continents on a plasticine ball, gradually increasing the diameter of the ball.
We achieve the size of the ball so that all the continents fit tightly to each other.

Let's look at the resulting mosaic of continents on a plasticine planet:
North America is tightly connected with South America, if you remove the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. Africa fits tightly between North America and South America. Eurasia is located north of Africa and east of North America. Greenland is located between North America and Eurasia. (Fig. 4)
East of Africa - Madagascar, India, Australia, Antarctica. (Fig. 1)
Antarctica fits snugly between Australia, Africa and South America. (Fig. 2)
The islands of New Zealand, the Indonesian and Philippine islands, the Japanese islands, Sakhalin Island and the Kamchatka Peninsula are located east of Eurasia and Antarctica.
On the opposite side of the plasticine planet (Fig. 1), the continents gathered so that an almost round gap was formed - the future Pacific Ocean. (Fig. 3)

All continents are closely adjacent to each other. Except for the gap where India “rammed” Eurasia. And there is one more bright spot - the future Mediterranean Sea, a separate story about it.

Placed the rotation axis slightly incorrectly on the plasticine planet. It should pass through the center of Antarctica on one side, and through the island of Greenland on the other. Almost the same as on a modern globe.

The diameter of the modern globe is 12,700 km, from the proportion we find that the diameter of a plasticine planet, with continents tightly docked, is 8,700 km. And the diameter of the hole in the earth’s crust is 6000 km!

Birth of the Moon

We already know the age of the Earth. Now we have to find out the age of the plasticine planet with a huge hole in the earth's crust.

The history of the development of the Earth's atmosphere will help us with this.
Scientists, studying gas bubbles of ancient glaciers, came to the conclusion that the gas content is constantly changing. As you know, carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases that is constantly present in the atmosphere. It acts like a blanket that supports more high temperature. When carbon dioxide levels fall, the climate becomes colder, and vice versa, when CO2 rises, the temperature on the globe rises.

Bob Berker, based on studying the carbon dioxide content in ancient glaciers, constructed a curve of CO2 depending on the passage of time.
From 600 million years ago to 300 million years ago, the level of carbon dioxide becomes gigantic and amounts to 20 conventional units. 300 million years ago, the CO2 graph drops vertically to zero. Then, starting 250 million years ago, the level of carbon dioxide rises, but not more than 5-7 units. The atmosphere today contains about 1-1.2 units of carbon dioxide.

What happened to the atmosphere 300 million years ago, when it almost completely disappeared from planet Earth?

Yes, it was at this time, 300 million years ago, that part of the Earth’s core was ejected, an incredibly gigantic force. Part of the Earth's core, having pierced the earth's crust and scattered it, burst out with such force and initial speed that, overcoming the Earth's gravity, it became a satellite of the Sun. It was this emission that destroyed almost the entire atmosphere of the Earth! The gigantic ejection gave jet acceleration to planet Earth; it flew at a higher speed along a new elliptical orbit, leaving behind an atmospheric plume.

This is how a new satellite of the Sun appeared - the Moon, born of planet Earth.
This was the “Main Event” in the entire history of the Earth.
And in solar system it was an extraordinary, isolated event. Giant planets often ejected part of their core, but never “let go” of their satellite planets.
The main event, the birth of the Moon, destroyed almost all earthly life. And it’s just a miracle that she remained on our planet.

Diameter of the newborn Earth

The difference between the diameters of the modern globe (Fig. 1 on the right) and the plasticine planet (in the middle): 12,700 km - 8,700 km. = 4000 km.
If we also subtract 4000 km from the diameter of the plasticine planet, we get: 8700 km. – 4000 km. = 4700 km., approximately this size should be the ball of the emerging Earth. But since in the first period of time (300 million years) the planet grew much slower than after the appearance of the Moon and the cracking of the continents, we accept the diameter of the Earth’s sphere (Fig. 1 on the left) as 6000 km. It turns out that globe over its entire history has more than doubled.
Growth of the diameter of planet Earth (Fig. 1)
F 6000 km. – F 8700 km. – F 12700 km.

Diameter of the newborn moon

The diameter of the modern Moon is 3475 km
From the proportion we get:
F 6000 km. – F 8700 km.
X - F 3475 km.

X = F of the newborn Moon = 2396 km.

But the Moon shows no signs of emerging matter. There are no earthquakes on it, there is no volcanic activity, and the release of gases is not observed. The modern Moon is emerging matter. Therefore, the approximate diameter of the erupted part of the Earth’s core (the newborn Moon) is 2500 km, which corresponds to a hole in the earth’s crust equal to 6000 km.

"Light" plasticine planet

The gravitational field of any planet is determined by the mass of its super-compressed core. If a planet's core is removed, its gravitational field will become hundreds of times smaller. (If we stand at the foot of the hewn end of a mountain range, then we will not experience any attraction to this wall, although its mass is very large. But if we stand near the core of the earth, then we will be flattened to a molecular state.)
Any "active" space object grows, increasing its mass and volume, as much as receding neighboring space objects allow it to do so.
The Earth, during the birth of the Moon, lost a significant part of its mass. An active process of restoration of the Earth's mass (for a given cosmic environment) has begun. The core began to produce a large amount of “light” magma.

The increasing distance from the core to the surface of the planet weakens the force of gravity on the surface of the continents.

Despite the fact that the diameter of the planet was almost 3 times larger than the modern Moon, its gravitational force on the surface was 2 times less than that of the Moon.

The era of giant animals on Earth

How could giant dinosaurs exist, the weight of which, in the conditions of modern Earth, would be 70 tons, and the Argentinosaurus would weigh 110 tons. The maximum weight of a modern land animal is the African elephant - 7.7 tons, and it experiences "difficulties" from gravitational field modern Earth. It moves slowly and can suffocate in its sleep due to its large body weight.

This is explained by the fact that during the prosperity of dinosaurs, the force of gravity on the surface of the Earth was 10-15 times less than on modern Earth. This is why the giant dinosaurs felt comfortable and were very mobile.

So, we found out that planet Earth emerged from the depths of the Sun - 600 million years ago.
The Moon emerged from the bowels of the Earth - 300 million years ago.
From the birth of the Earth (Fig. 1 on the left) to the plasticine planet (Fig. 1 in the center) 300 million years passed, and 300 million years passed from the plasticine planet to the modern globe.
The diameter of the newborn Moon is approximately 2500 km.
Retiring earth's crust from the small core of the Earth reduced the force of gravity on the surface of the continents. It was during these times that giant animals flourished.
The Earth has been growing throughout its history, increasing its mass and volume.

Literature

1. Bob Berker. Carbon dioxide content in ancient glaciers.
2. Stuart Atkinson. Astronomy. Encyclopedia of the world around us.

Reviews

Valery, you have a well-developed sense of analysis and imagination too. It turns out that the moon is the “spit” of our planet. How much energy was needed to throw out this clot. Now there are a lot of assumptions about the structure of the Earth. At first we believed - we thought that “the core of the Earth is boiling inside - iron is boiling there...” Now, as it seems to me, it may be empty there. Some facts indicate this. I, of course, am not an expert in this matter, but maybe this led you, Valery, to such a hypothesis regarding the appearance of the moon. There are even “holes” at the Earth’s poles, which provide the earth’s whirlpool. But anything is possible, but it’s still fantasy. After all, there are now such hypotheses that the moon - spacecraft. But not a ship, but something similar - for example, a space base. Sincerely, A.D.

An interesting service has appeared on the global network (dinosaurpictures.org), which allows you to see what our planet looked like 100, 200, ... 600 million years ago. A list of events occurring in the history of our planet is given below.

Our time
. There are practically no places left on Earth that are not affected by human activity.

20 million years ago
Neogene period. Mammals and birds are beginning to resemble modern species. The first hominids appeared in Africa.

35 million years ago
The middle stage of the Pleistocene in the era of the Quaternary period. In the course of evolution, small and simple forms of mammals evolved into larger, more complex and diverse species. Primates, cetaceans and other groups of living organisms develop. The earth is cooling, and deciduous trees are spreading. The first species of herbaceous plants evolve.

50 million years ago
Beginning of the tertiary period. After an asteroid destroyed the dinosaurs, surviving birds, mammals and reptiles evolved to occupy the vacated niches. A group of cetacean ancestors branches off from land mammals and begins to explore the oceans.

65 million years ago
Late Cretaceous. Mass extinction of dinosaurs, marine and flying reptiles, and many marine invertebrates and other species. Scientists are of the opinion that the cause of the extinction was the fall of an asteroid in the area of ​​the present Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico).

90 million years ago
Cretaceous period. Triceratops and Pachycephalosaurs continue to roam the Earth. The first species of mammals, birds and insects continue to evolve.

105 million years ago
Cretaceous period. Triceratops and Pachycephalosaurus walk around the Earth. The first species of mammals, birds and insects appear.

120 million years ago
Early Cretaceous. The earth is warm and humid, and there are no polar ice caps. The world is dominated by reptiles; the first small mammals lead a semi-hidden lifestyle. Flowering plants evolve and spread throughout the Earth.

150 million years ago
The end of the Jurassic period. The first lizards appeared, primitive placental mammals evolved. Dinosaurs dominate all land. The world's oceans are inhabited by marine reptiles. Pterosaurs become the dominant vertebrates in the air.

170 million years ago
Jurassic period. Dinosaurs are thriving. The first mammals and birds evolve. Ocean life is diverse. The climate on the planet is very warm and humid.

200 million years ago
Late Triassic. As a result of mass extinction, 76% of all species of living organisms disappear. Population sizes of surviving species are also greatly reduced. Species of fish, crocodiles, primitive mammals, and pterosaurs were less affected. The first real dinosaurs appear.

220 million years ago
Middle Triassic. The Earth is recovering from the Permian-Triassic extinction event. Small dinosaurs begin to appear. Therapsids and Archosaurs appeared along with the first flying invertebrates.

240 million years ago
Early Triassic. Due to the death of a large number of land plant species, there is a low oxygen content in the planet's atmosphere. Many types of corals have disappeared; it will take many millions of years before they begin to rise above the surface of the Earth. coral reefs. Small ancestors of dinosaurs, birds and mammals survive.

260 million years ago
Late Perm. The largest mass extinction in the history of the planet. About 90% of all species of living organisms disappear from the face of the Earth. The disappearance of most plant species leads to the starvation of a large number of species of herbivorous reptiles, and then predatory ones. Insects are deprived of their habitat.

280 million years ago
Permian period. The landmasses merge together to form the supercontinent Pangea. Climatic conditions are deteriorating: polar ice caps and deserts are beginning to grow. The area suitable for plant growth is sharply reduced. Despite this, four-legged reptiles and amphibians are diverging. Oceans abound various types fish and invertebrates.

300 million years ago
Late Carboniferous. Plants develop a developed root system, which allows them to successfully colonize hard-to-reach areas of land. The area of ​​the Earth's surface occupied by vegetation is increasing. The oxygen content in the planet's atmosphere is also increasing. Life begins to actively develop under the canopy of ancient vegetation. Evolving the first reptiles. A wide variety of giant insects appear.

340 million years ago
Carboniferous (Carboniferous period). There is a mass extinction of marine organisms on Earth. Plants develop a more advanced root system, which allows them to more successfully invade new land areas. The concentration of oxygen in the planet's atmosphere is increasing. The first reptiles evolve.

370 million years ago
Late Devonian. As plants develop, life on land becomes more complex. A large number of insect species appear. Fish develop strong fins that eventually develop into limbs. The first vertebrates crawl onto land. The oceans are rich in corals, various types of fish, including sharks, as well as sea scorpions and cephalopods. The first signs of a mass extinction of marine life are beginning to appear.

400 million years ago
Devonian. Plant life on land becomes more complex, accelerating the evolution of terrestrial animal organisms. Insects diverge. The species diversity of the World Ocean is increasing.

430 million years ago
Silur. The mass extinction wipes out half of the species diversity of marine invertebrates from the face of the planet. The first plants begin to colonize the land and populate the coastal strip. Plants begin to develop a conducting system that accelerates the transport of water and nutrients to tissues. Marine life is becoming more diverse and abundant. Some organisms leave reefs and settle on land.

450 million years ago
Late Ordovician. The seas are teeming with life, and coral reefs appear. Algae are still the only multicellular plants. Complicated life absent on land. The first vertebrates appear, including jawless fish. The first harbingers of mass extinction of marine fauna appear.