Because of cyanobacteria life was able to diversify and become more complex very rapidly. ibid.
Microbes reigned supreme for much of Earth’s history. They revolutionised the planet and paved the way for a myriad of more sophisticated species. But it was land that gave life-forms a new home. ibid.
Its history has been compared to a twenty-four-hour clock with man occupying only the final two seconds of the day. ibid.
Spaceship Earth may return to its tumultuous beginnings. ibid.
The Earth’s north and south poles are known as the cryosphere. ibid.
The prognosis is bleak. ibid.
In the grand scheme of things we may already have had a good run. ibid.
The destruction of planet Earth ... 10) Smackdown from Space ... 9) The Big Freeze ... 8) The Big Burn ... 7) Stopping the Spin ... 6) Torn Between Two Black Holes ... 5) Devoured From Within ... 4) Turn Off the Gravity ... 3) Anti-Matter Annihilation ... 2) Transformed By Strange Matter ... 1) When Parallel Worlds Collide. The Universe s4e6: 10 Ways to Destroy the Earth
Earth: the third planet from the Sun is brimming with breath-taking beauty. Unlike any other body in the solar system liquid water covers nearly two-thirds of its surface ... It’s the only planet confirmed to support life in all its forms. The Universe s5e1: Seven Wonders of the Solar System (I)
One feature on Earth is abundant liquid water. It is thought the earliest volcanoes spewed out massive amounts of steam which condensed into rain and supplied the planet with water. But recently, new sources of water have been suggested. And water appears to be a key component for the origin of life. ibid.
Throughout its more than four billion years of existence planet Earth has endured some extremely rough days. The Universe s6e5: Worst Days on Planet Earth
The seven worst days on planet Earth: 7) The Theia Impact 6) The Late Heavy Bombardment 5) Snowball Earth 4) The Ordovician Extinction 3) The KT Extinction 2) The Great Dying 1) The Solar Apocalypse. ibid.
We have the potential to release two or three giga-tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in the next couple of centuries. When we look at the Siberian Trap volcanism we’re talking about maybe similar quantities of carbon dioxide released, but over millennia to over a million years. Professor Lee Kump, marine geochemist
If it’s not impact, then the next most dramatic instant kind of catastrophe is initiated by volcanic eruptions of some kind. Professor Mike Benton
We may have very big crystals at the centre of the earth. Maybe up to ten kilometres – it’s like a forest. It looks very interesting. Professor Kei Hirose
The Earth formed through a series of devastating catastrophes. An apocalyptic planetary collision. Millions of cosmic impacts. And one of the most powerful blasts in the universe – a supernova. Yet these cataclysms created the planet we know today. Could other planets have formed the same way? How the Universe Works s2e8: Birth of the Earth, Discovery 2012
For Earth to even exist it had to overcome astronomic odds. ibid.
On Earth all the conditions are just right for life. ibid.
Without Earth’s molten iron core none of us could survive. ibid.
Our planet’s last giant impact: Thea was the size of Mars ... The Earth just survived. ibid.
Without our large moon we might not even be here. ibid.
The moon ensures the Earth stays spinning at the same angle, and that steadies our climate. ibid.
Comets and icy asteroids can contain huge reserves of water. ibid.
Life such as ours needs a planet with the right temperature and size, a stabilizing moon, a protective magnetic field and just the right quantity of water – the conditions must be perfect. ibid.
The Earth is taking us on the ride of our lives, hurtling through space in ways we never imagined. Now, we’re unlocking the secrets of our planet’s voyage. How the Universe Works s8e8: Earth’s Death Orbit, Science 2020
Life evolved in lockstep with Earth’s spinning motion. ibid.
The Earth is over 4.5 billion years old. Its history is shaped by disaster after disaster. These violent events could be why Earth has life. Earth has walked the line between survival and destruction. Could catastrophe and chaos be the essential ingredients for life? How the Universe Works s10e3: Dark History of Earth
Our planet is unique. An extraordinary piece of engineering over four and a half billion years. Richard Hammond’s Journey to the Centre of the Planet, BBC 2011
There are hundreds of these sink-holes in this area. ibid.
Get below three hundred feet and almost all evidence of humanity disappears. No human being has ever been more than two and a half miles below the surface. ibid.
Three thousand miles below: a giant ball of solid metal. This is the inner core of the Earth. It’s almost as big as the moon, and it’s as hot as the surface of the sun. ibid.
Fourteen enormous slabs called tectonic plates. ibid.
There is more water held in underground aquifers like this than in all the lakes and rivers of the world. ibid.
San Francisco and Los Angeles sit on two separate tectonic plates either side of the San Andreas Fault. ibid.
Who two tectonic plates collide solid land can buckle upwards. ibid.
We survived. 99% of all the species that ever existed didn’t. They were wiped out in a series of global catastrophes; disasters brought life to the verge of extinction. Four and a half billion years ago the Earth collided with another planet; the impact nearly destroyed our world but instead it made it a home. This is the story of our planet’s difficult birth. Tony Robinson, Catastrophe I: Birth of the Planet, Channel 4 2008
The craters paint a picture of an intensely violence period, of a solar system littered with cosmic debris. ibid.
Thea [planatoid] hit the Earth at twenty-five thousand miles per hour, with the force of billions of mega-ton bombs. The impact ripped off huge sections of the Earth’s crust. Billions of tons of debris blasted into space. A ring of red hot dust and rock formed around the Earth. Over the next hundred years the rocks and dust slowly clumped together into a ball one fiftieth the size of Earth. We call it the Moon. ibid.
When the moon rose four billion years ago it wasn’t the familiar moon we see today. It was ten times closer to the Earth and dominated the horizon. ibid.
When astronauts landed on the moon they left behind the American flag and something else – reflectors. Almost daily Jerry Wiant and his colleague aim their laser at one of the lunar reflectors. They were measuring the precise distance between the moon and the Earth. ibid.
650 million years ago the Earth froze. It pushed life to the verge of extinction. But if it hadn’t, life today would be little more than microscopic slime. This is the story of snowball Earth. Tony Robinson, Catastrophe II: Snowball Earth
The planet froze. Temperatures plummeted. Ice spread down from the poles. It encased the planet in a layer thousands of metres thick. A snowball Earth. ibid.
Glaciers are nature’s bulldozers. ibid.
The term snowball Earth was coined by geologist Joe Kirschvink who has been gathering evidence on the theory for the past two decades. ibid.
Carbon Dioxide that was once in the atmosphere was locked away on the ocean floor. ibid.
Cyanobacteria were depleting them further. In combination with weathering they sucked the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and temperatures plummeted. ibid.
A catastrophic chain reaction pushed it to the point of no return. ibid.
It was this catastrophe that brought about life as we know it. ibid.
Volcanoes are the only things on the planet hot enough and strong enough to thaw a frozen world. ibid.
The Permian: and the Earth faced the biggest catastrophe it had ever seen. One cataclysmic event kick-started a chain reaction that wiped out 95% of all the animal and plant species on the planet. Tony Robinson, Catastrophe III: Planet of Fire
This layer marks the moment when the world changed; below the line grey rocks full of fossils, full of life; above in the red rocks nothing. Life had almost ceased to exist. ibid.
An impact from out of space: could it have been an asteroid strike? ibid.
The extinction happened over a period of 100,000 years. Far too long to be the result of a meteor strike. The Greenland team’s discovery means that something else must have caused the extinction. ibid.
Volcanoes are Nature’s ultimate destructive force. Fuelled by immense pressure deep within the planet they shoot molten rock and toxic gasses high into our atmosphere. ibid.
250 million years ago the Siberian flood basalt released enough lava to cover an area the size of the United States under one mile of molten rock. Siberia has long since cooled. ibid.
Today there is an estimated 30 trillion tons of methane locked away in ice on the sea bed ... Frozen methane is ultra-sensitive to heat. ibid.
5% lived, and those survivors are our ancestors of all life on Earth. ibid.
Sixty-five million years ago an asteroid the size of Mount Everest smashed into the Earth at sixty times the speed of sound. It unleashed a series of events that wiped out 70% of all species including the dinosaurs. Tony Robinson, Catastrophe IV: Asteroid Strike