The first eon in Earth's history, the Hadean, begins with the Earth's formation and is followed by the Archean eon at 3.8 Ga. The oldest rocks found on Earth date to about 4.0 Ga, and the oldest detrital zircon crystals in rocks to about 4.4 Ga, soon after the formation of the Earth's crust and the Earth itself.
Precambrian Time: 4.6 billion to 542 Million Years Ago
Precambrian Time started at the beginning of the Earth 4.6 billion years ago. For billions of years, there was no life on the planet. It wasn't until the end of Precambrian Time that single-celled organisms came into existence.
In Earth's Beginning
At its beginning, Earth was unrecognizable from its modern form. At first, it was extremely hot, to the point that the planet likely consisted almost entirely of molten magma. Over the course of a few hundred million years, the planet began to cool and oceans of liquid water formed.
When the solar system settled into its current layout about 4.5 billion years ago, Earth formed when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust in to become the third planet from the Sun.
The earliest life forms we know of were microscopic organisms (microbes) that left signals of their presence in rocks about 3.7 billion years old. The signals consisted of a type of carbon molecule that is produced by living things.
Homo sapiens, the first modern humans, evolved from their early hominid predecessors between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago. They developed a capacity for language about 50,000 years ago. The first modern humans began moving outside of Africa starting about 70,000-100,000 years ago.
Humans first evolved in Africa, and much of human evolution occurred on that continent. The fossils of early humans who lived between 6 and 2 million years ago come entirely from Africa. Most scientists currently recognize some 15 to 20 different species of early humans.
Numerous efforts have been made to determine the biblical date of creation, yielding varying results. Besides differences in interpretation, the use of different versions of the Bible can also affect the result. Two dominant dates for creation using such models exist, about 5500 BC and about 4000 BC.
In Hinduism, Lord Brahma is the creator of the universe.
All of the planets, except for Earth, were named after Greek and Roman gods and godesses. The name Earth is an English/German name which simply means the ground. It comes from the Old English words 'eor(th)e' and 'ertha'. In German it is 'erde'.
Earth is estimated to be 4.54 billion years old, plus or minus about 50 million years. Scientists have scoured the Earth searching for the oldest rocks to radiometrically date. In northwestern Canada, they discovered rocks about 4.03 billion years old.
After things cooled down, simple organic molecules began to form under the blanket of hydrogen. Those molecules, some scientists think, eventually linked up to form RNA, a molecular player long credited as essential for life's dawn. In short, the stage for life's emergence was set almost as soon as our planet was born.
There are later descriptions of creatures in the Bible that could be referring to dinosaurs. One example is the behemoth of Job 40:15-19. Even in fairly modern history there are reports of creatures which seem to fit the description of dinosaurs.
They used these variations to create a more reliable molecular clock and found that Adam lived between 120,000 and 156,000 years ago. A comparable analysis of the same men's mtDNA sequences suggested that Eve lived between 99,000 and 148,000 years ago1.
Nothing. Since the world was created out of nothing (ex nihilo), nothingness prevailed. Therefore God was idling, just existing, perhaps contemplating creation.
The first tells that God created man in his image, male and female together (Genesis 1: 27), and Adam is not named in this version. The second tells that God created Adam from the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils, and he became a living soul (Genesis 2: 7).
Chaos, (Greek: “Abyss”) in early Greek cosmology, either the primeval emptiness of the universe before things came into being or the abyss of Tartarus, the underworld. Both concepts occur in the Theogony of Hesiod. First there was Chaos in Hesiod's system, then Gaea and Eros (Earth and Desire).
Known as a “Child of the Earth” or “El Niño de la Tierra” in Spanish, this insect has also been called the Jerusalem cricket, and “the old bald man” (Who-tzi-Neh) by many American Indian tribes, and the “potato bug.” There are several myths about this insect. One myth is that the Jerusalem cricket is poisonous.
Anatomically modern humans emerged around 300,000 years ago in Africa, evolving from Homo heidelbergensis or a similar species and migrating out of Africa, gradually replacing or interbreeding with local populations of archaic humans. For most of history, humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers.
A new genomic study has revealed that Aboriginal Australians are the oldest known civilization on Earth, with ancestries stretching back roughly 75,000 years.
Basic math tells us that all humans share ancestors, but it's amazing how recently those shared ancestors lived. Thanks to genetic data in the 21st century, scientists are discovering that we really are all descended from one mother.
From about 1.2 million years ago to less than 100,000 years ago, archaic humans, including archaic Homo sapiens, were dark-skinned.
Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors.
Humans looked essentially the same as they do today 10,000 years ago, with minor differences in height and build due to differences in diet and lifestyle.