How Far Back In Earth's History Could You Have Survived?
History of the Earth・42 minutes read
A paleontologist embarks on a time travel journey to the beginning of Earth's history, facing harsh conditions and changing landscapes over billions of years, eventually finding sustainable life in the mid-Cretaceous era after surviving on fruits, nuts, meat, and seafood, showcasing human adaptability and evolution throughout Earth's history.
Insights
- The time traveler experiences Earth's ancient atmospheres, from the hydrogen and helium-filled Hadean Earth to the oxygen-lacking archaean Earth, highlighting the crucial role of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane in creating habitable conditions despite the faint sun.
- The evolution of plant life, from gymnosperms to angiosperms, showcases the importance of edible plant products for human survival, emphasizing the significance of soft fruits over indigestible seeds, ultimately leading to a balanced diet of fruits, nuts, and meat that allowed early humans to thrive in the mid-Cretaceous period.
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Recent questions
What is the significance of the MOXIE instrument on Mars?
MOXIE produces oxygen from carbon dioxide.
What event transformed Earth's atmosphere around 2.7 billion years ago?
Photosynthesis evolved, releasing oxygen.
What characterized the Boring Billion era in Earth's history?
Minimal changes in landscape and atmosphere.
What marked the rise of angiosperms in Earth's history?
Appearance in the early Cretaceous period.
What enabled humans to truly survive in the mid-Cretaceous period?
Balanced diet from ancestral flowering plants.
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Summary
00:00
Time Traveler's Journey to Earth's Origins
- A paleontologist embarks on a time travel journey to the beginning of Earth's history, targeting a date four and a half billion years ago.
- The traveler carefully selects Western Australia as the starting point due to the region's ancient rocks, flicking switches to set the time machine for the desired date.
- The time machine accelerates time rapidly, showcasing the sun's movements in reverse, leading to a blur of days and nights as millions of years pass by.
- Doubt creeps in as the traveler questions their preparedness and the risks involved in the journey, but it's too late to turn back as the target date approaches.
- The traveler arrives at the Hadean Earth, a harsh and volcanic landscape with a thin atmosphere of hydrogen and helium, facing alarming conditions and potential dangers.
- The traveler, overwhelmed by fear and adrenaline, hastily changes the target date to escape the hazardous environment, avoiding a catastrophic encounter with the scorching ground.
- The time machine decelerates to 3.5 billion BCE, revealing a transformed Earth with a hazy blue sky, deep blue water, and a surprisingly warm climate despite the young sun's limited luminosity.
- The traveler discovers that the archaean Earth's atmosphere lacks oxygen, containing nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and methane, with carbonic acid causing ocean acidity and a unique orange haze in the sky.
- The balmy climate on the archaean Earth is attributed to the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide and methane, trapping heat and creating a tropical environment despite the faint sun.
- Despite the traveler's longing to explore the warm waters, the lack of breathable air outside the capsule forces them to observe the stunning auroras and vast ocean, realizing the absence of land and the need to find a habitable atmosphere.
18:06
"Perseverance Rover Lands on Mars, Produces Oxygen"
- On February 18, 2021, the Perseverance Rover landed on Mars after a 480 million-kilometer journey.
- The landing involved deploying parachutes, reverse jets, and a hovering crane to slow down the Rover due to Mars' thin atmosphere.
- Mars has minimal oxygen, so the Rover carried an experimental instrument called MOXIE to produce oxygen from carbon dioxide.
- MOXIE successfully produced 5.3 grams of oxygen in an hour, a crucial step for future manned Mars missions.
- Photosynthesis evolved around 2.7 billion years ago, transforming Earth's atmosphere by releasing oxygen.
- The Great Oxidation Event led to large-scale oxygen production, altering the planet's ecosystems.
- The atmosphere's oxygen levels stalled at 4%, insufficient for breathing, leading to a global glaciation period.
- The Boring Billion era, lasting about a billion years, saw minimal changes in Earth's landscape and atmosphere.
- In the Neoproterozoic era, photosynthetic life expanded onto land, transforming the ecosystem.
- Oxygen levels finally rose to nearly 20% around 750 million BCE, allowing the Traveler to breathe the ancient air on Earth.
35:58
Survival Struggles in Prehistoric Eras
- The time traveler, in need of food and shelter, struggles to find edible algae in the neoproterozoic era due to indigestibility and lack of nutrition.
- Ada Blackjack, a Native Alaskan woman, survives alone on Wrangle Island after being abandoned by her expedition party, showcasing remarkable survival skills.
- The time traveler reflects on the basic human needs for survival: air, temperature, water, and food, emphasizing the criticality of shelter.
- The traveler encounters the idiacaran period, witnessing the emergence of unique macroscopic life forms, but struggles to find edible creatures due to their rarity.
- Charles Doolittle Walcott's discovery of the Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies leads to the unearthing of well-preserved soft-bodied animals from the Cambrian explosion.
- The traveler feasts on a diverse array of Cambrian sea creatures, including clams, arthropods, and trilobites, enjoying a guilt-free protein-rich banquet.
- The traveler explores the Ordovician period, encountering towering fungi known as prototaxities, envisioning their potential use for shelter.
- Progressing through the Paleozoic era, the traveler witnesses the evolution of land plants, from algae to gymnosperms, but finds them indigestible for sustained survival.
- In the Mesozoic era, the discovery of the fruit-eating bird Jeholornis reveals the importance of soft fruit in providing nutrients, contrasting with the indigestible seeds of gymnosperms.
- The traveler learns that angiosperms, or flowering plants, provide edible plant products crucial for human diets, unlike the indigestible gymnosperms.
52:58
Rise of Angiosperms: Key to Evolution
- Angiosperms, appearing 140 million years ago in the early Cretaceous, quickly rose to dominance due to their superior means of reproduction, becoming an essential part of the food chain within just 20 million years, as evidenced by jalornis fossils.
- In the mid-Cretaceous, a time-traveling paleontologist finds a sustainable life among diverse landscapes populated by dinosaurs, primitive birds, and mammals, surviving on a balanced diet of fruits and nuts from ancestral flowering plants, complementing their trapping skills for meat and seafood, marking the earliest time period where humans could truly survive, after a journey through Earth's history spanning billions of years.
