AR ZONE
EARTH’S EVOLVING CLIMATE
From hot to cold and back again “As Earth
This NASA image shows hurricanes forming in the atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean
Just after the birth of the Solar System, in the Hadean Eon, the entire Earth was liquid, a hellscape of fire and lava. The planet was still being pummelled from all directions by meteor strikes. As Earth started to cool, a crust of solid rock began to appear on its surface, but at first it was very fragile.
Repeated impacts and volcanic eruptions broke that crust into chunks called tectonic plates, which floated on the magma below.
During the Archaean Eon, 4 to 2.6 billion years ago, the plates started moving, but when they collided, the heat of the mantle would break them apart. They had to stop, cool down and recover before they could start moving again. By the time this eon came to an end, tectonic plates had become more stable, and they had started to move constantly. Across history the plates have continually collided and separated, forming and reforming different patterns of continents and oceans.