The Story of the Earth

Chapter 3 - The Ice Age

The water is now full of microscopic organisms. These single-celled bacteria are the earliest form of life on Earth. This is a defining moment of the making of a planet. Microscopic life is on the way. To find more complex life, we have to move further in time. In the shallow ocean, rock-like figures sprouted from the ocean floor. But these are not rocks, these are colonies of bacteria. These bacteria are called Stromatolites. They collect the sun's rays and make them into food or in other words photosynthesis. The colonies created oxygen and the atmosphere. Without them, life will not be possible.

Years past, oxygen levels continued to rise, days got longer and the water levels rose. With days lasting for 16 hours, the temperature got higher. The average temperature is now 30 degrees Celsius but after those years, there is still no life. No plants, no dinosaurs and no humans but the Earth has something that no other planet has, a force to change everything. When we move time further, we see the crust separated into plates. These plates are moving carrying water and land with them. Move even further through time, the first super continent is made.

Stromatolites worked their magic after millions of years, pumping oxygen into the air. The temperature is still 30 degrees Celsius but days are 18 hours long. But there is still no complex life, just ancient bacteria. To find life, we need to move on. The continent started to separate because of one force strong enough to rip the crust into pieces and that is heat. The intense geographical activity made a mass of volcanoes. They spit carbon dioxide into the air trapping the sun's rays from the Earth. Because of this, the temperature decreases. The land became a frozen wasteland with temperatures around -50 degrees Celsius. This is what we call the Ice Age.