Chapter 93: Geographical Timelines

"You have correctly joined the chains of these novels. They all are interconnected to each othe-"

Jia didn't wait for the mysterious sound to complete his sentence and asked, "But how could be that possible? Like these all happened or emerged at different time lines! And I don't think the same thing happened again and again at different time lines. Or els-"

This time Xin didn't let her complete her sentence and intervened by saying, "Or else Earth would have been devoided of flora and fauna by now!"

"Yes, I was telling the same."

"Then let me give you some more clues about it~"

Hearing this Jia was getting annoyed at one point. In the begging she was feeling excited to solve different pieces of the puzzles with the Mysterious Voice…. But now it was getting on her nerves.

They started from somewhere and were heading towards somewhere. Unknown to Jia that with passing moments her vessel construction was getting upgrades. And had evolved from an A Grade vessel to A+ vessel till then.

Xin on the other hand was aware about this phenomenon and was trying her best to prolong the conversation as much as possible. It wasn't any normal chit-chat conversation but a conversation containing the true essence of life and the divinity of the world.

By now Xin was sure that Jia had power related to Space-Time Creation and he no more wanted to waver from his hunch. All this time he was noticing the changes in energies around her.

And discovered that only the power of Space, Time and Creation were fluctuating and changing waves around her. 

So to prolong his talk Xin asked Jia, "Then do you know about the different time lines of Earth?"

"Ugh…." After giving it some thought Jia decided it's useless to answer his questions. Cause one way of other he will her a detailed explanation about them. So instead of spending her energy to pose her knowledge and later to be lectured again Jia decided to be modest and let the mysterious voice take the lecture.

"I know, but not much about it."

This was the answer that Xin was expecting from Jia. And upon hearing this Xin directly jumped onto the topic and started giving her knowledge about it.

According to Xin Hadean Eon, informal division of Precambrian time occurring between about 4.6 billion and about 4.0 billion years ago.

The Hadean Eon is characterized by Earth's initial formation—from the accretion of dust and gases and the frequent collisions of larger planetesimals—and by the stabilization of its core and crust and the development of its atmosphere and oceans.

Throughout part of the eon, impacts from extraterrestrial bodies released enormous amounts of heat that likely prevented much of the rock from solidifying at the surface. As such, the name of the interval is a reference to Hades, a Greek translation of the Hebrew word for hell.

Earth's surface was incredibly unstable during the early part of the Hadean Eon. Convection currents in the mantle brought molten rock to the surface and caused cooling rock to descend into magmatic seas. Heavier elements, such as iron, descended to become the core, whereas lighter elements, such as silicon, rose and became incorporated into the growing crust. Although no one knows when the first outer crust of the planet formed, some scientists believe that the existence of a few grains of zircon dated to about 4.4 billion years ago confirm the presence of stable continents, liquid water, and surface temperatures that were probably less than 100 °C (212 °F).

Since Hadean times, nearly all of this original crust has subducted from the movements of tectonic plates, and thus few rocks and minerals remain from the interval. The oldest rocks known are the faux amphibolite volcanic deposits of the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt in Quebec, Canada; they are estimated to be 4.28 billion years old. The oldest minerals are the aforementioned grains of zircon, which were found in the Jack Hills of Australia.

Although many scientists contend that the atmosphere and the oceans formed during the latter part of the eon, the discovery of the zircon grains in Australia provide compelling evidence that the atmosphere and ocean formed before 4.4 billion years ago.

The early atmosphere likely began as a region of escaping hydrogen and helium. It is generally thought that ammonia, methane, and neon were present sometime after the crust cooled, and volcanic outgassing added water vapour, nitrogen, and additional hydrogen.

Some scientists state that ice delivered by comet impacts could have supplied the planet with additional water vapour. Later, it is thought, much of the water vapour in the atmosphere condensed to form clouds and rain that left large deposits of liquid water on Earth's surface.

After the Hadean Eon it was the starting of the Archean Eon.

Archean Eon, also spelled Archaean Eon, the earlier of the two formal divisions of Precambrian time (about 4.6 billion to 541 million years ago) and the period when life first formed on Earth. The Archean Eon began about 4 billion years ago with the formation of Earth's crust and extended to the start of the Proterozoic Eon 2.5 billion years ago.

The start of the Archean Eon is only defined by the isotopic age of the earliest rocks. Prior to the Archean Eon, Earth was in the astronomical (Hadean) stage of planetary accretion that began about 4.6 billion years ago; no rocks are preserved from this stage. The earliest terrestrial materials are not rocks but minerals.

During this time Earth began cooling. And because it was cool enough, water could finally condense to form its first oceans. This was in a large part because the moon stabilized Earth's climate giving it seasons.

It is thought that the oxygen content in today's atmosphere must have slowly accumulated through time starting with an atmosphere that was anoxic during Archean times. Although volcanoes exhale much water vapour (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2), the amount of free oxygen (O2) emitted is very small.

The inorganic breakdown (photodissociation) of volcanic-derived water vapour and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would have produced only a small amount of free oxygen.

The bulk of the free oxygen in the Archean atmosphere was derived from organic photosynthesis of carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) by anaerobic cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), a process that releases oxygen as a by-product.

These organisms were prokaryotes, a group of unicellular organisms with rudimentary internal organization that began to appear near the end of the Archean Eon.

Although oxygen did not accumulate in any appreciable amount in the atmosphere until early Proterozoic time, processes occurring in Earth's oceans toward the end of Archean helped set the stage for the increase in atmospheric oxygen.

After Archean it was the dawn of the Protezoric Eon.

The Proterozoic Eon, meaning "earlier life," is the eon of time after the Archean eon and ranges from 2.5 billion years old to 541 million years old. During this time, most of the central parts of the continents had formed and the plate tectonic process had started. 

Photosynthesis (in organisms like stromatolites) had already been adding oxygen slowly to the atmosphere, but it was quickly absorbed in minerals. Evolutionary advancements in multicellular cyanobacteria completely transformed the atmosphere by adding free oxygen gas (O2) and causing the decimation of the anaerobic (non-oxygen) bacteria that existed at the time. 

This is known as the Great Oxygenation Event. In an oxygenated world, organisms could thrive in ways they could not earlier. Oxygen also changed the chemistry of the planet in significant ways.

For example, iron can be carried in solution in a non-oxygenated environment. 

However, when iron combines with free oxygen, it creates a solid precipitate to make minerals like hematite (iron oxide).

This is the reason large deposits of iron known as banded iron formations are common during this time, ending around 2 billion years ago.

The formation of the banded iron lasted a long time and prevented the oxygen level from increasing significantly in the oceans since the rocks literally took the oxygen out of the water and formed alternating layers of iron-oxide minerals and red chert.

Eventually, as oxygen continued to be made, absorption of oxygen in mineral precipitation leveled off, and dissolved oxygen gas started filling the oceans and eventually bubbling out into the atmosphere. Oxygenation of the atmosphere is the single biggest event that distinguishes the Archean Earth and the Proterozoic Earth.

In addition to changing mineral and ocean chemistry, this event is also tabbed as the likely cause of Earth's first glaciation, the Huron Glaciation that occurred around 2.1 billion years ago.

Free oxygen reacted with methane in the atmosphere, turning it into carbon dioxide. Methane is a more effective greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and as CO2 increased in the atmosphere, the greenhouse effect actually decreased, thus cooling the planet.

Early life in the Archean and earlier is poorly documented in the fossil record, but chemical evidence and evolutionary theory state that this life would have been single-celled photosynthetic organisms such as cyanobacteria in stromatolites. Fossil cyanobacteria in these stromatolites produced free oxygen in the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Cyanobacteria are prokaryotes, i.e. single-celled organisms (archaea and bacteria) with simple cells that lack a cell nucleus and other organelles.