One billion old age ago , Earth was boring as Hades . creature were yet to develop and most life history was little , simple , and slimy . Even if you were to go sightseeing during this period , you ’d be grossly disappointed by the view ; the major planet was weirdly flat with no towering mountains , but plenitude of featureless sea covered in stinking scum .
It was such an quotidian chapter in Earth ’s history that scientists have call it the " oil production billion . " Some investigator havetried to fight backagainst this recording label , claiming the period was more dynamic than previously thought , but it ’s safe to say it was relatively eventless compared to therest of Earth ’s hazardous past .
Between 1.8 billion and 800 million years ago , Earth enter a long time period of relative stasis , marking little change in biologic phylogeny , geology , climate , or the chemical composition of the ocean and aura .
In 2021 , scientists publisheda studythat prove this menstruum was also a time of everyday architectonic plate activity , make a period of importantly reduced mountain construction .
Mountains areformed by architectonic platesslowly crashing into each other , have them to crumble up at the tantrum of the collision . This is how the Himalayas were formed around 50 million years ago , when the Native American tectonic plate smooshed into the Eurasian plate , causing immense amounts of Earth ’s crust to be displaced and force up .
The researchers discovered evidence indicating that during Earth ’s irksome billion , the crust was thinner and more undifferentiated than it is today , to the spot where no mountains existed . alternatively , the planet was dominated by immense oceans and flat landmasses . These circumstance imply that architectonic activity likely slow up importantly or cease all for about one billion eld .
Interestingly , tectonic activity might have been the define cistron of this achingly dull period . The shift of architectonic plates helps enrich the public ’s ocean by raise up sediment and impertinence , releasing more nutrients into the water . An abundance of food creates a fertile environment that advance life and theevolutionof more mintage . Without tectonic effort , the sea can become moribund and less dynamic , slowing the rate of evolution .
It ’s not clear why tectonic activity stop during the drilling billion , nor what reignited it . Yet , when Earth ’s crust begin to stir once more , it ushered in wholesale transformations to the air , oceans , and living . As boring as it may seem at the surface , this period is a good reminder that Earth ’s systems are deep interconnected and inseparable from one another .
