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    Amidst The Rainfall

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    achikauhkauh15
    The Earth formed around 4.5 billion years ago from gases and dust in the solar system. The early atmosphere was hydrogen and helium but was lost. A second atmosphere formed from volcanic outgassing containing water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and other gases. Oxygen levels rose with the evolution of photosynthetic life. The current atmosphere established around a billion years ago with nitrogen increasing and carbon dioxide decreasing due to chemical weathering and life.

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    Amidst The Rainfall

    Uploaded by

    achikauhkauh15
    9 views3 pages
    The Earth formed around 4.5 billion years ago from gases and dust in the solar system. The early atmosphere was hydrogen and helium but was lost. A second atmosphere formed from volcanic outgassing containing water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and other gases. Oxygen levels rose with the evolution of photosynthetic life. The current atmosphere established around a billion years ago with nitrogen increasing and carbon dioxide decreasing due to chemical weathering and life.

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    Amidst the rainfall

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    The Earth formed around 4.5 billion years ago from gases and dust in the solar system. The early atmosphere was hydrogen and helium but was lost. A second atmosphere formed from volcanic outgassing containing water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and other gases. Oxygen levels rose with the evolution of photosynthetic life. The current atmosphere established around a billion years ago with nitrogen increasing and carbon dioxide decreasing due to chemical weathering and life.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    9 views3 pages

    Amidst The Rainfall

    Uploaded by

    achikauhkauh15
    The Earth formed around 4.5 billion years ago from gases and dust in the solar system. The early atmosphere was hydrogen and helium but was lost. A second atmosphere formed from volcanic outgassing containing water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and other gases. Oxygen levels rose with the evolution of photosynthetic life. The current atmosphere established around a billion years ago with nitrogen increasing and carbon dioxide decreasing due to chemical weathering and life.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 3

    The Origin of the Earth's NOTES

    Atmosphere
    (Geography)

    About 4.5 billion years ago, Earth formed out of nebula of gases and dust that were to become the
    solar system
    Small objects--called planetoids-- accreted or combined together to build larger …. objects such as
    planets

    The First Atmosphere


     The early atmosphere would have been similar to the Sun--mainly hydrogen and helium, but

    this atmosphere was lost quickly for two reasons:

    (1) The gravity of the modest size earth was not strong enough to prevent such light gases

    from escaping to space.

    (2) It appears that around 30 million years after the earth's formation, it was struck by a large

    object...the size of Mars. The result: the origin of the moon and loss of earth's early H, He

    atmosphere.

    Earth as Hell
     The surface of the earth during this period was extremely hot with numerous volcanoes

     The earth was under near constant bombardment by objects of varying sizes

     Slowly, the earth started to cool down and the second atmosphere began to form.

    1
    Earth's Second Atmosphere
    NOTES
     A new atmosphere has established by the outgasing of volcanoes...the mixture of gases was

    probably similar to those of today's:

     H2O vapor (roughly 80%)

     CO2 (roughly 10%)

     N2 (few percent)

     Small amounts of CO, HCL, HS (Hydrogen Sulfide), SO 2, CH4 (Methane), Ammonia (NH3), and

    other trace gases.

    Earth's Second Atmosphere


     Virtually no oxygen in that second atmosphere.

     Thus, no ozone layer, so ultraviolet radiation flooded the earth's surface.

     With a huge influx of water vapor and the cooling of the planet, clouds and earth's oceans

    formed.

     At that time the sun was about 30% weaker than today.. .why didn't the earth freeze over?

     The apparent reason: so much CO2 so there was a very strong greenhouse effect.

    The Rise of Oxygen and the Third Atmosphere


     In the first two billion years of the planet's evolution, the atmosphere acquired a small amount

    of oxygen, probably by the splitting of water (H2O) molecules by solar radiation.

     The oxygen also led to the establishment of an ozone layer that reduced UV radiation at the

    surface.

     With the rise of photosynthetic bacteria (cyanobacteria) and early plants, oxygen levels began

    to rise.

     Between 2.5 billion years ago to about 500 by a, O2 rose to near current levels.

    The Third Atmosphere


     While O2 was increasing, CO2 decreased due to several reasons:

     (1) In photosynthesis CO2 is used to produce organic matter, some of which is lost to the

    system (e.g., drops to the bottom of the ocean or is buried)

     (2) chemical weathering, which removes CO2

    Chemical Weathering
     H2O + CO2  H2CO3 carbonic acid

    2
     CaSiO3 + H2CO3  CaCO3 + SiO2 + H2O
    NOTES
    Silicate Rock Carbonate

     At first this happened without life, but the process was sped up tremendous by living

    organisms

     Marine organisms would incorporate carbonate into their shells, which would fall to the ocean

    bottom when they died---thus, removing them from the system for a long time.

     The bottom line...CO2 was being removed from the system.

    More Changes
     Sulfur compounds were taken out of the atmosphere as acid rain and were deposited on the

    ground as sulfates.

     N2 gas increased slowly but progressively since it was relatively inert.

     Current composition of the atmosphere was established approximately a billion years ago.

    How Did We Get UnFrozen?


     Volcanoes were still putting CO2 into the atmosphere

     Weathering was greatly reduced...since little liquid water.

     So CO2 increased until the greenhouse effect was so large the earth warmed up.

     Once warming started it would have happened very rapidly.

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