Planet Earth - The Neoproterozoic Era - The Tonian Period

The Neoproterozoic Era (1,000 to 542 million years ago) is the third era that makes up the Proterozoic Eon and this era is made up of three periods - the Tonian, Cryogenian (I bet this one is a bit cold) and the Ediacaran. It should be said that little is known about this era, although scientists are starting to find more about it, especially the third period of it (the Ediacaran). 

For this posting, I shall focus on the Tonian period (the period of 1,000 to 850 million years ago). Despite his presence in the early 21st Century politics, this period was not named after Tony Blair; the word derives from the Greek word "tonas" meaning "stretch". 

During this period, it is thought that the supercontinent, Rodinia, started to break up

I haven't mentioned this before, and it should be a good idea to mention them despite the fact they have been around since 3,200 million years ago. The acritarchs are small organic fossils (normally if the fossil is not formed from a form of an acid soluble compound or a carbonate or siliceous compound but is still organic, it is classed as an acritarch) and the diversity or the paucity of these species recorded in sedimentary rocks reflects the state of the planet with reference to the past ecological events (palaeoenvironment). The acritarch, as you may find out, can represent the remains of the three aforementioned life domains (remember LUCA) of archaea, bacteria and the eukaryote. The presence of the acritarchs found within the Tonian period tend to be chlorophyta (green algae) and fungi ( a form of eukaryotic life that forms a large group of great importance still to life today). Where would Whatlington and Vinehall Street be without beer and bread (both need yeast)?

Next time - the Cryogenian Period

The Christmas Quiz with answers

As promised and slightly late. As it is traditional with Christmas, please find a Christmas quiz, the answers will follow on another post but, of course, the answers are within the blog.

Lucky you - the answers are given here with links to the articles.

1) Who allowed the choir of Whatlington Church out early to get conkers from the church yard?

Mr. Ken Crouch

2) What did the term "plough" imply on an entry in the Domesday Book?

The term "plough" implies eight oxen with the plough, Whatlington had land for six ploughs.

3) What food and drink have the two villages produced? 

The villages have produced barley, beef, lamb, potatoes, raspberries, strawberries, wheat and wine (both red and white).

4) What is the name of the village group that follows the Sussex Fire and Firework Festivals?

The Whatlington Renegades

5) What are the compounds in leaves that provide the orange, red and yellow colourations in autumn?

Carotenes (orange), red (anthocyanins) and yellow (xanthophylls) in the falling leaves.

6) What was the name of the lady who was in charge of the village hall in the seventies who lived in Park Lane?

Miss Pratt

7) What was the first name on the list from the Great War on the War Memorial in Whatlington Church?

Gillachrist Moore

8) What was the first natural force that separated after the Big Bang event?

Gravity

9) What is the age of the Planet Earth when compared to the age of the Universe?

A third

A History of Whatlington and Vinehall Street - A Christmas Quiz

As it is traditional with Christmas, please find a Christmas quiz, the answers will follow on another post but, of course, the answers are within the blog.

1) Who allowed the choir of Whatlington Church out early to get conkers from the church yard?

2) What did the term "plough" imply on an entry in the Domesday Book?

3) What food and drink have the two villages produced?

4) What is the name of the village group that follows the Sussex Fire and Firework Festivals?

5) What are the compounds in leaves that provide the orange, red and yellow colourations in autumn?

6) What was the name of the lady who was in charge of the village hall in the seventies who lived in Park Lane?

7) What was the first name on the list from the Great War on the War Memorial in Whatlington Church?

8) What was the first natural force that separated after the Big Bang event?

9) What is the age of the Planet Earth when compared to the age of the Universe?

Happy Christmas 

Christmas Reading - Have a break from the history of the Planet Earth

It is Christmas Time and often book are given as gifts. 

If you are bored of me talking about the history of the Planet Earth, can I suggest you read from a few of these books:

Bill Bryson A Short History of Nearly Everything - It can be found as an illustrated version here or it can be found as a pdf here.

Richard Dawkins - The Magic of Reality - It can be found here as an illustrated copy.

Later today - a Christmas quiz on the early days of the Whatlington and Vinehall Street Archive, answers will be revealed on Boxing Day and then the history of both Whatlington and Vinehall Street will continue. 

Happy Christmas to all our readers across the globe.

Planet Earth - The Stenian Period - The jigsaw on Boxing Day

The Stenian Period ran from 1,200 to 1,000 million years ago and was the last period of the Mesoproterozoic Era. The name derives from the Greek word for narrow polymetamorphic (many rocks that are changed by heat and pressure) bands created within the rock.

The Rodinian supercontinent starts its main construction time of this supercontinent spanned from 1,100 to 780 million years despite some of the material having been already established in the last period, Ectasian. The name Rodinia comes from the Russian for "birth". The evidence for this supercontinent is found within the orogenies of the time (Dalslandian in Europe, the previously mentioned Grenville in North America and the Uralian in Siberia). With geological evidence, it is thought that Rodinia was centred south of the equator. Rodinia is thought to have comprised of the Amazonian Craton, Australia, the Congo Craton, Eastern Antarctica,  the Eastern European Craton, India, the Kalahari Craton, the North American Craton, the Rio de la Plata and Sao Francisco Craton, the West African Craton. So, basically a supercontinent made up of jigsaw parts of huge cratons. 

After the break up of the continent around 780 to 750 million years ago, the fragments became part of the supercontinent Pangaea.

Next time - The Neoproterozoic Era and the Tonian Period

Planet Earth - The Ectasian Period - Caution contains first record of sexual reproduction

The Ectasian period that dated from 1,400 to 1,200 million years ago is the second of three periods that make up the Mesoproterozoic Era. So why the picture above - read on and you'll find out why.

The term Ectasian comes from the Greek word for "Extension" and relates to the continuing expansion of the continents by the progression of sedimentary and volcanic deposits that continue, during this period, to cover the craton (the older and more stable part of the craton). This extension helped to form the basis of the  supercontinent Rodinia, which lasted from 1,100 million years to 780 million years ago, through the break up of the previous supercontinent, Columbia, and through accretion. A mountain range building event, known as the Grenville orogeny, that ran from the Labrador coast to Mexico on the North American continent was also formed over a series of events; it should be noted that part of Scotland has evidence of this orogeny.

It should be noted that this period is potentially the first recorded time that sexual reproduction had been recorded. A form of red algae (Bangiomorpha pubescens - a form of eukaryote) left its microfilaments as a fossil in the Hunting Formation on Somerset Island in Canada and is dated around 1,200 million years old. The microfilaments are evidence for complex multicellularity - multicellular organisms contain cells that perform specialised functions. Sexual reproduction has to solve the problem of generating an organism from germ cells (a biological cell that produces gametes of a sexually reproducing organism and a gamete is a cell that joins with another cell during fertilisation).

Previously asexual reproduction, the direct copying of cells without the fusion of gametes into an organism, meant that multicellularity could not exist. So, therefore, it stands to reason that both multicellularity and sexual reproduction and fossilised records of the former are all geological markers within our history of both Whatlington and Vinehall Street 

There is an interesting article about the chemical properties of early life that can be found here.

Next time - The Stenian Period

Planet Earth - The Mesoproterozoic Era - Calymmian Period

So with a few days until Christmas 2011, we enter Mesoproterozoic Era (1600 to 1000 million years ago) or the middle period of the Proterozoic Eon in a period called Calymmian. The title of the period comes from the Greek word for "cover".

The first period of the Mesoproterozoic Era only lasted 200 million years (1600 to 1400 million years ago) but with a brief summary, a lot started to happen - the continuing expansion of land platforms from the original cratons; photosynthetic organisms began to become more diverse; the free oxygen content increased in the atmosphere; a formation of ozone started to create a layer (it eventually settles in the stratosphere and it was thought that eukaryotic nucleated cells appeared at around the same time as the breakup of the supercontinent Columbia (around 1,500 million years ago).

It could be said that the formation of the ozone layer is one of the more important features of the Calymmian Period (although as I am beginning to figure out everything has its place and its importance). The current position of the stratosphere is situated between about 10 kilometres (6 miles in old money - nearly the distance from Whatlington to Hastings on the A21) and 50 kilometres (30 miles - nearly the distance from Whatlington to Sevenoaks in Kent) above the planet's surface at moderate latitudes. But like with all life there is an exception, at both the north and south, it starts at about 8 kilometres (5 miles - the approximate distance between Whatlington and the far side of Battle) above the surface.

Three oxygen atoms combine to form tropospheric and stratospheric ozone or O3; for this blog posting we are more interested in the stratospheric ozone  that plays absorbs a large percentage of the UV-B rays. Weirdly, it still allows a proportion of the damaging UV-B rays through that heats the stratosphere to around a current temperature of minus 3 degrees centigrade or 29.6 degrees Fahrenheit and heats the planet's surface. As an article by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric  Administration) states: "Ozone thus plays a key role in the temperature structure of the Earth's atmosphere". Without the reduction of the UV-B rays, both animals and plants would be damaged  as proved through experimentation. 

Next Time: The Ectasian Period

Planet Earth - Statherian Period

The Statherian Period ran from 1,800 to 1,600 million years ago and despite being a short period in the Palaeo-Proterzoic Era, it was an important time in the development for life on the planet. - 

The two hundred million years ensured that cratonisation led to new land platforms and supercontinents being formed; complex single celled life were formed; variance of archaeans and bacteria came into existence.

The name for this period comes from the Greek word for "stable" or "firm". The planet has already been prone to volcanic activity within the Rhyacian period; the transformation of the planet's atmosphere from methane to carbon dioxide and water vapour created the Huronian Glaciation; the bombardment of extraterrestrial material in the Orosirian period - so it was about time for a period of stability. 

During this time the smaller continents of Atlantica, Nena (Nuna) and Ur drifted towards each other to form a supercontinent, namely Columbia. But when I say drifted, I mean, they became one through a series of processes - accretion (this was mentioned here), continental shelves gaining more stable bases, fold belts (where two separate pieces of land are pushed together and form deformations in the crust), plate tectonics (a theory only accepted in the 1950s and 1960s). Columbia was made up of cratons (a stable part of the continental crust where the basement rock is exposed and then get covered in layers of sediment and, in time, sedimentary rock) and was approximately 12,900 kilometres (8,016 miles) from North to South and 4,800 kilometres (2,983 miles) at the broadest point. But as with all wrapping paper on Christmas afternoon, it gets recycled and the supercontinent started to fragment at the end of the Statherian period.

So as the progression of supercontinents through their lifecycle continues, so does the progression of life. Remember LUCA and how it split into three different life systems - the single-celled, the archaean and the eukaryotes. Well more complex versions of the single celled life and eukaryotes started to appear and become more established in the Statherian period as well as eukaryotes. More of these life forms will come to the surface in this brief history of Whatlington and Vinehall Street, have a good Tuesday.

Planet Earth - The Orosirian Period

The Orosirian Period ran from 2,050 to 1,800 million years ago. It is named after the Greek word for "mountain range".

So it stands to reason that there would be a great deal of mountain development within these 250 million years as well as some impacts from small (a meteor is the visible tail of the meteoroid [a sand to boulder sized particle] and if it lands then it becomes classed as a meteorite) to larger extraterrestrial material. Some of these larger impacts have been recorded within the geology of the newly formed super continents.

One example was an asteroid of 5 to 10 kilometres in diameter (that is 3.1 to 6.2 miles in imperial units) that hit the earth's surface in an area close to the town of Vredefort in what is now South Africa. It left an impact crater of 250 to 300 miles in diameter (160 to 190 miles) but with this type of impact there other effects left. The nearby structures of the Bushveld Igneous Complex and the Witwatersrand Basin were also formed around the same geological period and it is thought that the kinectic movement from the impact may have caused the regional vulcanism (volcanic activity). So why are the geological structures so important, the Bushveld Igenous Complex holds a great proportion of the world's platinum group metals and Witwatersrand holds gold reserves. 

By 2,000 million years ago, it is thought that the luminosity of the sun had reached eighty-five percent of its present luminosity and more free oxygen started to accumulate in the atmosphere.

In 1,850 million years ago, the planet was rocked by another impact from a fireball of between 10 to 15 kilometres in diameter. Sudbury Basin, in Ontario, is about 62 kilometres long (39 miles), 30 kilometres (19 miles) wide and 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) deep and it scattered debris over an area of 1.6 million square kilometres (620,000 square miles). The crater then filled with magma and solidified over time with such economic minerals as copper, gold, palladium and platinum to name but a few. 

Next time - The Statherian Period 

Planet Earth - The Rhyacian Period

The Rhyacian Period ran from 2,300 to 2,050 million years ago.

Groups of intrusions started to form, but what are intrusions? Wikipedia, our friend through this journey through time, describes "an intrusion as liquid rock that forms under the Earth's surface." But it is so much more than this - this liquid rock or magma pushes up through cracks and spaces through the planet's surface to form a different form of solid rock and this process can take millions of years to develop. The magma cools or crystalises into minerals. But when you are talking of a period of the Earth's history that is 250 million years old, the development of intrusions are easy. Don't forget that the last post talked of the increase of mineral diversity or catastrophe three. To remind yourself of what an intrusion may look like - remember Devil's Tower National Monument from the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind - that is one. The intrusions that were developed during the Rhyacian period included the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Bushveld Complex.

Another event defined the activity within the Rhyacian Period - this was the development of the eukaryotes. Remember how you were introduced to LUCA a few posts ago. So LUCA split into the three forms that we still know today; the single-celled, the archaea and the eukaryote. 

So what is a eukaryote? It is an organism that contains complex structures with cells that have membranes, which also contains its own copy of genetic material contained within the nucleus. They also contain specific and specialised equipment within a cell, these may be mitochondria (remember these?) or chloroplasts (these help plants make energy from solar energy. So the Rhyacian Period was when the eukaryote started to develop, I won't spoil the ending but have a look around you and see what could be a eukaryote.

Planet Earth was still covered in snow and ice due to the conversion of the primitive atmosphere from methane to carbon dioxide and a abundance of water vapour. This first ice age was known as the Huronian Ice Age or the Makganyene glaciation. It is thought to have ended around between 2,200 and  2,100 million years ago.

Evidence of this glacial period has been found in Lake Huron where there were there have found sediments from three glacial periods interspersed with non glacial periods. The latter name, Makganyene, refers to similar deposits laid down in the Transvaal group of mountains in South Africa. Why do we worry about these names and the evidence that they provide? I guess, it is to see where we are going and what we have missed, in the words of G. K. Chesterton:

"The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present" (1933)

Next time - Another period but which one?

Planet Earth - The Siderian Period

Hello, back again, as explained in the last post we shall now be looking in lit bit more detail as to what happened in these periods that make up the eras. As we get closer to 2012, we find that more has been found and purported to be found, so there will be more to say. I shall endeavour to be as concise as possible. I will only try to add what I think is pertinent to the evolution of both Whatlington and Vinehall Street.

The Siderian Age ran from 2,500 to 2,300 million years ago and oxygen was produced as a waste product by anaerobic (without oxygen) algae (as previously mentioned here); this had an effect on the previously formed iron by creating an iron oxide, later named magnetite (Fe₃O₄) and is known for its magnetic properties. This had the side effects of taking iron out of the sea water, which previously had a greenish colour and was now a lot clearer, as well as creating a more oxygen-rich atmosphere. There are still examples of the banded iron formations, which  were created in this age, in the sediments of Minnesota, USA. For those that know Whatlington and Vinehall Street in Sussex may well be aware that the early development of these two villages did rely on the iron resources.

It was during this period that continents began to show above the waters on the planet. But all was not well, especially above the planet's surface. This abundance of oxygen in the atmosphere created an event that was later known as the oxygen catastrophe. Before this event, organic matter, such as the aforementioned algae and dissolved iron, would capture any free oxygen.

But after the event, the rising saturation of free oxygen in the atmosphere led to the deaths, on a planet wide scale, of anaerobic life. It also oxidised methane (CH₄) to create a weaker greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂) and water (H₂O). Like a line of dominoes, one change can lead to a lot of other changes or, as we like to call them on Earth, catastrophes. 

Catastrophe One - The Huronian Glaciation - the water in the atmosphere led to one of the longest and most severe glaciation events, which lasted from 300 to 400 million years covering both the Siderian and Rhyacian periods. It could be said that this glaciation may have also started from a decrease in volcanic activity and the angle of tilt in the earth.

Catastrophe Two - Increase in Biological Diversity - the abundance of free oxygen in the atmosphere led to opportunities in the chemical reactions between substrates and the Earth's atmosphere, oceans and surface's fresh water. The energy (in the form of adenosine triphosphate or ATP) created within cells, known as mitochondria, are thought to have formed after the Oxygenation Catastrophe.

Catastrophe Three - Increase in Mineral Diversity - it is thought the Oxygenation Catastrophe is responsible for creating 2,500 new minerals from the 4,400 known minerals found on Earth by the processes of hydrating and oxidising. There are still some minerals to be discovered, but an article by Robert M. Hazen in the Scientific American journal:

"Most of these new minerals occurred as thin coatings and rinds of altered material on existing rocks. Many rare mineral species are known from only a handful of precious crystals that weigh less than a gram. But the Great Oxidation Event" or the Oxidation Catastrophe "had global mineralogical consequences as well. Most notably, the planet rusted - across the globe, the black basalt...turned red as the ferrous iron of common basalt mineral oxidised to hematite and other rust red ferric iron compounds". Scientific American March 2010 (Accessed 17/12/2011 - http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=evolution-of-minerals&page=1) 

Next time: The Rhyacian Period

Planet Earth - The Proterozoic Eon - Parish Notices

As we enter the Proterozoic Eon, a period from 2,500 million years ago to 542 million years, we find that more information has been found out and thus this large time frame can be split up into smaller sections. Thus this eon, a primary division of geologic time lasting over 500 million years and there have only been four named. You better check up on these, there may be a quiz for the Christmas edition of the blog.

An eon is then split up into Eras (a division of geological time that last several hundred million years), Periods (a period of geological time lasting tens of millions of years and longer than an epoch), Epochs (a division of geological time lasting tens of millions of years and shorter than a period) and Ages (a unit of geological time shorter than an epoch a few million years).

So the Proterozoic Eon is then split into three eras – the Palaeoproterozoic Era (2,500 to 1,600 million years ago), the Mesoproterozoic Era (1,600 to 1,000 million years ago) and the Neoproterozoic Era (1,000 to 542 million years ago).

Thus the next posting on the blog will be describing what happened in the first period, the Siderian Period, of the Proterozoic Era (2,500 to 2,300 million years ago). I hope I haven’t lost you, but I had to describe these section descriptions so that we can get through to the details that so made the planet a suitable place for both Whatlington and Vinehall Street. Should I also include Woods Green that is nestled between the formerly mentioned and the latterly mentioned villages? I await your thoughts.

Planet Earth - The Archaean Eon (edited and added)

Okay, so I seemed to have fallen at the first hurdle of getting a post out per day, but I had a great evening talking with two inhabitants of Whatlington, one from Battle and one from Cranbrook. The results of this will go on the blog soon, but we still have 3,800 million years to go. 

So may I introduce to you, the Archaean Eon or Era - It is dated, through chronometry, from 3,800 million years to 2,500 million years ago. It is said that the surface of the planet had solidified and with the accretion of extra-terrestrial material on to the planet; the day's length had increased from 7 hours (Hadean Eon) to fifteen hours. The heat flow of the planet was three times greater than the present level. This is due to three factors; the aforementioned accretion, heat from the proto core and the heat from the decay of radioactive elements. The tectonic and volcanic activity was thought to be high, although evidence of tectonic plate movement is still being examined by scientists to see if it occurred at that time.

The palaeo-atmosphere of the Archaean environment is thought to have 75% nitrogen and 15% carbon dioxide; the luminosity of the sun was estimated to between 70-80% of the present sun.

Water, in a liquid form, is thought to have been present as it has been recorded in deformed gneisses (a form of metamorphic rock).

By the end of the Archaean Eon, evidence of geological  features included continent-continent collisions, intracontinental rifts, sedimentary basins, volcanic arcs and the forms left by the creation and destruction of proto and supercontinents. Rocks with Archaean history can be found at the Baltic Shield Canadaian Shield, Greenland, India, Scotland, Southern Africa and Western Australia. These rocks are often named as banded iron formations, greywackes, mudstones and volcanic sediments, there were few carbonate rocks due to the acidic levels in the oceans (more can be found at Archaean Palaeo-Geology).

A recent article in the New Scientist, 25th of November 2011, suggests that there is evidence that supports the theory of the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA). It reports that a mega-organism that lived in the Archaean oceans gave rise to the three domains of what we now know as life - the single celled, the archaea and the eukaryotes. This mega-organism or LUCA was not the first example of life, but it was the first successful one that can be supported by present day evidence of inherited proteins from LUCA.

"Caetano-Anollés searched a database of proteins from 420 modern organisms, looking for structures that were common to all. Of the structures he found, just 5 to 11 per cent were universal, meaning they were conserved enough to have originated in LUCA" (New Scientist 2011). LUCA also gave rise to cell membranes, organelles (cell compartments with specific functions); it had a varied metabolism and it may have used ribonucleic acid (RNA), which stores information and controls the chemical reactions. As Caetano-Anollés states, "LUCA was a clumsy guy trying to solve the complexities of living on primitive Earth" (New Scientist 2011).

Despite there being no known fossils of eukaryotic life from the Archaean Eon, we have seen, above, that inherited proteins show a last universal common ancestor; but we do have fossils of mats of a form of bacteria, Cyanobacteria or blue-green algae, which is thought to have created free oxygen in the atmosphere. These mats are also known as stromatolites - a structure formed in shallow water that bind cement and trap grains of sediment within a biofilm of the micro-organism, such as the Cyanobacterium. Stromatolite fossils are easily found within the Pre-Cambrian period (dates from 4,600 million years ago to 542 million years ago - a period of time that represents 88% of geological time).

Today Stromatolites can be found in the Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Turkey and Western Australia near salt and fresh water, although there is one example that lives in the Jenolan caves in Australia and survives from calcium rich water that percolates through limestone.

Next time - The Proterozoic Eon 

Planet Earth - The Hadean Eon - Part Two

It started from approximately 4.5 billion years ago and ended approximately 3.8 billion years ago; the Hadean Eon named by the geologist, Preston Cloud , in 1972 was used to represent a time of bombardment by extra-terrestrial material, fire and possibly like a vision of hell. 

The examination of the moon's surface and by dating moon rock, it has helped to partition the Hadean Eon into further time periods:

Birth of the Moon - (4.527 billion years ago) an approximate date for when a bombardment hit the molten proto-planet Earth and thus created a satellite.

Pre-Nectarian - (3.92 billion years ago) an approximate date of the crust's formation of the moon.

Nectarian - (3.85 billion years ago) an approximate date of when the terrestrial bombardment started to recede.

Using locations in western Greenland, north western Canada and Western Australia, there are provisions of  evidence of Hadean sediments (Greenland) and zircon crystals (Australia and Canada). The crystals are estimated at 4 billion years old and the sediments to 3.8 billion years old. The latter rock has also evidence of banded iron beds with the potential for organic carbon and with that it suggests that photosynthetic life had already been established.

But as with all science and their associated theories and evidence; the suggested period of Hadean-like life as purported by Preston Cloud may be be different. During the time of bombardment, approximately 4.527 billion years ago, an impact into the partially molten planet may have formed the Earth's satellite, the moon. This dislodgement not only moves material but it also dislodges water molecules that have been trapped within the planet's rock structure and surface into the proto-atmosphere. This is due to the gravity of the planet being less strong due to the planet being 40% of its present size. This proto-atmosphere consisted of a heavy carbon-dioxide atmosphere laden with hydrogen and water vapour (a combination of hydrogen and oxygen). The raised atmospheric pressure, due to the presence of carbon dioxide led to collections of water be present on the planet's surface despite a suggested surface temperature of two hundred and thirty degree Centigrade (446 degrees Fahrenheit in old money).

The study of the zircon crystals in 2008 has shown that liquid water may have been present 4.4 billion years ago and they may also hold evidence of plate tectonic activity approximately 4.0 billion years ago. The action of subducting (sinking) plates traps both rock and carbon dioxide, so as the process carried on  it took more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. This reduced the greenhouse effect leading to a cooler surface temperature, the formation of rocks and even life. This, of course, at present is partially conjecture based on archaeo-geological (or palaeo-geological) evidence and next time, we enter the Archaean Eon. 

Planet Earth - The Hadean Eon - Part One

Hope you are still with me - please bear with me whilst I distill the vital ingredients for the history of the Hadean Eon of Earth's History. However can I suggest you listen to the recent episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage that explains the origins of life - I will be using the information from this show as well as other resources - this happens to be a happy example of synchronicity. Synchronicity happens to pop up a lot in the history of both Whatlington and Vinehall Street from the dawn of time until 2012.

Planet Earth - the early years, I mean the really early years

Hello there and welcome - the last five posts have taken you, the reader, as well as me; the writer who has sneakily used other people's work to take you from that point of 10^–43 seconds after the Big Bang Event (BBE) to an estimated time of 9.2 billion after the BBE. Yes, of course I have taken necessary steps to simplify parts and if you would like to add some descriptions in the comment section below this post.

So, of course, our next question or at least the path of where we gain our next part of the history of Whatlington and Vinehall Street is how did planet Earth form from the stellar material (or supernovae) that is ejected from collapsing old stars. It should also be stated, at this point, that the current estimated age of Earth is 4.578 billion years and those kind compilers at Wikipedia, as you can guess, have designed a geological clock (see below) on which I base the next section of the Whatlington and Vinehall Street Archive. We are often reminded that three is the magic number, the age of Earth is approximately one third of the age of the Universe.

(Click on the image to see a better view)

It is purported that certain planets in our solar system were formed from the solar nebula, the disc shaped cloud of dust and gas, whereby dust grains start to orbit around what may be described as a protostar - a contracting mass of gas that represents the beginning of a star - his process is known as accretion. The accretion of the dust grains leads to clumps reaching sizes of up to 200 metres, these larger clumps bind together to form planetesimals - a minute planet of up to 10 kilometres in size. With increasing accretion due to gravitational force, these planetesimals increased in size by centimetres over the millions of years. 

Due to the position of Earth, and the other terrestrial planets, in relation to the Sun - volatile molecules were unable to condense such as methane and water. However the planetesimals could only form elements with high melting points including such metals as iron (Fe), nickel (Ni) and aluminium (Al) and rocky compounds such as silicates (SiO₄). But due to the low presence of these metals and compounds in the solar nebula, they form 0.6% of the solar nebula, the so-called terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) were limited to being of a smaller size compared to the gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune). The liquid metals started to sink towards the mass's centre of the proto planet that would be known as Earth. This led to an event entitled the Iron Catastrophe, a supposed date of this event is 500 million years into the formation of Earth, where the collection of iron and nickel at the central mass led to the separation of the mantle and core. This led to the layered structure of Earth and its magnetic field. 

Before I leave you today, a cloud of gaseous silica was said to have surrounded the planet like an early form of atmosphere, this cloud would condense and form the rocks on the Earth's surface. This led to another form of atmosphere that was created when the proto Earth had increased its size to approximately 40% of today's size by accretion - thus the force of gravitational attraction retained a proto atmosphere that also stored water.

Have a good day and thus we travel further on to the Hadean and Archaean Eons next time.

A romp through spatial time

From that time of 1 second after the Big Bang Event (BBE) to 400,000 years after the BBE, the temperature of the expanding quark-gluon fog  had decreased from 10 billion degrees Centigrade to a more amenable 2,700 degrees Centigrade. This decrease in the temperature allows the electrons, sub atomic particles with a negative elementary electrical charge, to combine the previously mentioned protons and neutrons to create atoms. It is suggested that the first few elements that are created by the collection of atoms are Helium (with one atom) and Hydrogen (with two atoms). It is also suggested that light starts to begin the process of illumination.

For the next billion years, the first natural force that was separated after the BBE, gravity starts to make both Helium and Hydrogen to join together, or coalesce, to form giant clouds and this is aided by the drop in temperature from the previously recorded positive 2,700 degrees Centigrade to negative 200 degrees Centigrade. These giant clouds start to form galaxies and I don't mean the chocolate or the mobile devices! The smaller clumps of Helium and Hydrogen of gas collapse to create the first examples of stars, a massive sphere of illuminated and ionised charged particles or plasma, within the universe.

After that initial billion years, it is purported that the temperature drops further to negative 270 degrees Centigrade for the the next 13.7 billion years. This allows the previously mentioned galaxies, a massive mixed system of dust, gas and stars (as well as the remains of previously formed stars) that are conjoined by gravity as well as the recently discovered but not very well understood dark matter. It is called dark matter due to the fact that it neither emits or scatters light nor does it emit or scatter electromagnetic radiation. It is stated that 95% of all matter in the universe is either dark energy or dark matter. During this 13.7 billion years, as old stars collapse and they eject heavy elements into space and this material is recycled into new planets, this being a body that travels around either a star or the remains of a star and is neither big enough to create thermonuclear fusion, and stars.  

The universe has been aged at 13.7 billion years, a year being defined at 365.25 days or 86,400 seconds, however for the sake of this blog, I am ending this section of the blog at 9.2 billion years as I am leaving 4.5 billion years for the formation of the planet we know as Earth. 

I hope you are enjoying this romp through time, please add a comment if I have got things wrong or just say that you are enjoying it.

Supersymmetry Breaking, the Quark Epoch and the Hadron Epoch

Another day and slightly closer to finding why Whatlington and Vinehall Street are where they are today and how their past has formed the present.

Supersymmetry Breaking

The is first period was when the last two forces, electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force were separated and the subThe universe starts to cool from its original heat of 1,000 trillion, trillion degrees Centigrade to only 10 trillion degrees Centigrade; this cooling allows those quarks - remember those particles we met last time - to combine and form protons and neutrons. A proton is known as a subatomic positively charged particle of one elementary charge, the number of protons in an atom is shown in its atomic number on those old posters of the Periodic Table.

Back to the science, a neutron is the subatomic hadron particle that has no electrical charge with a mass slightly larger than a proton. 

The Quark Epoch (between 10^–12 seconds and 10^–6 seconds after BBE) had too high a temperature to allow the quarks to form a hadron. The hadron is a composite particle made up of quarks held together by, what is known in the particle physics community as, a strong force.

During the Hadron Epoch (Between 10^–6 seconds and 1 second after BBE) the temperature of the plasma-gluon cloud, remember that one, cooled to 10 billion degrees Centigrade and this allowed the quarks to cool and form hadrons. Neutrons slowly become protons and our first element, Helium, starts to form a nuclei. But the temperature is still too hot for atoms to form.

Next time - we fast forward our trip to the formation of the third rock from the sun.

The Electroweak Epoch and The Inflationary Epoch

I hope that I haven't lost you so far with a very concise history of the expanding universe so far, we have only covered up to 10^–36 seconds after the Big Bang Event (BBE). But within this expansion will be two villages, namely Whatlington and Vinehall Street.

There are two schools of Big Bang Cosmology, the traditional and the inflationary. The traditional school states that the electroweak epoch began at 10^–36 seconds when the temperature is low enough to separate the strong force from the electroweak. The inflationary school suggests that the electroweak epoch began when the inflationary ended at 10^–32 seconds after the BBE. Cox and Cohen (1996) appear to subscribe to the inflationary school and put the inflationary epoch before the electroweak epoch.

The Inflationary Epoch describes a time of super fast expansion of the universe from the size of an atom (between 30 & 300 picometres or 1.0 x 10^-12 metres) to that of a grapefruit (between 5 & 8 centimetres or 0.01 metres) in the period of 10^-21 seconds; thus the expansion increased both lineal and volumetric dimensions. A theorised version of the BBE when it was the size of a grapefruit was theoretically donated to the Museum of Curiosity, a BBC Radio 4 programme, by John Gribben. It is said that if the speed of expansion decreases the universe becomes more chaotic and conversely if the expansion gains accleration it creates a more ordered universe.

Within this expansion is a collection of anti-quarks (the opposite of a quark), electrons (stable subatomic particle with a charge of negative electricity), gluons (a massless, neutral vector boson that mediates strong interactions between quarks, binding them together within hadrons), quarks (an elementary and fundamental particle of matter) and other particles. It is also known as a quark-gluon plasma. The temperature within this expanding space is still around 1,000 trillion, trillion degrees centigrade. This quark-gluon plasma will help to repopulate the universe as it enters the electroweak epoch. I am sure when I was young, there was a type of yoghurt or cheese called Quark.

The Electroweak Epoch was a time (from 10^–36 seconds or the end of the inflation epoch to 10^–12 seconds after the BBE) within the universe's evolution that the 1,000 trillion, trillion degree centigrade heat was able to combine both the electromagnetic force with the weak interactions to form one electroweak interaction. The energetic interactions of the previously named particles within the dense and hot quark-gluon plasma created large quantities of exotic particles - these included the W, Z and Higgs boson. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is attempting to recreate the Higgs boson and other particles. The quarks start to gain mass like the stomach of a person during the meal on Christmas Day.

In brief, a really small cloud of particles expanded to a slightly bigger cloud with these particles becoming slightly heavier and less chaotic. We haven't even reached a second after the BBE yet.

Next time - Supersymmetry Breaking, the Quark Epoch and the Hadron Epoch.

Next time, The Quark Epoch and The Early Universe, have a good day.