The history of Earth concerns the development of planet Earth from its formation to the present

day.[1][2] Nearly all branches of natural science have contributed to the understanding of the main
events of Earth's past. The age of the Earth is approximately one-third of the age of the universe. An
immense amount of geological change has occurred in that timespan, accompanied by the
emergence of life and its subsequent evolution.
Earth formed around 4.54 billion years ago by accretion from the solar
nebula.[3][4][5] Volcanic outgassing probably created the primordial atmosphere and then the ocean,
but the early atmosphere contained almost no oxygen and so would not have supported known
forms of life. Much of the Earth was molten because of frequent collisions with other bodies which
led to extreme volcanism. A giant impact collision with a planet-sized body named Theia while Earth
was in its earliest stage, also known as Early Earth, is thought to have been responsible for forming
the Moon. Over time, the Earth cooled, causing the formation of a solid crust, and allowing liquid
water to exist on the surface.
The geological time scale (GTS) depicts the larger spans of time, from the beginning of the Earth to
the present, and it chronicles some definitive events of Earth history. The Hadean eon represents
time before the reliable (fossil) record of life beginning on Earth; it began with the formation of the
planet and ended at 4.0 billion years ago as defined by international convention.[6] The Archean and
Proterozoic eons follow; they produced the abiogenesis of life on Earth and then the evolution of
early life. The succeeding eon is the Phanerozoic, which is represented by its three component eras:
the Palaeozoic; the Mesozoic, which spanned the rise, reign, and climactic extinction of the non-
avian dinosaurs; and the Cenozoic, which presented the subsequent development of dominant
mammals on Earth.
Hominins, the earliest direct ancestors of the human clade, rose sometime during the latter part of
the Miocene epoch; the precise time marking the first hominins is broadly debated over a current
range of 13 to 4 million years ago. The succeeding Quaternary period is the time of recognizable
humans, i.e., the genus Homo, but that period's two million-year-plus term of the recent times is too
small to be visible at the scale of the GTS graphic. (Notes re the graphic: Ga means "billion
years"; Ma, "million years".)
The earliest undisputed evidence of life on Earth dates at least from 3.5 billion years ago,[7][8][9] during
the Eoarchean Era after a geological crust started to solidify following the earlier
molten Hadean Eon. There are microbial mat fossils such as stromatolites found in 3.48 billion-year-
old sandstone discovered in Western Australia.[10][11][12] Other early physical evidence of a biogenic
substance is graphite in 3.7 billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks discovered in
southwestern Greenland[13] as well as "remains of biotic life" found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in
Western Australia.[14][15] According to one of the researchers, "If life arose relatively quickly on Earth
then it could be common in the universe."[14]
Photosynthetic organisms appeared between 3.2 and 2.4 billion years ago and began enriching the
atmosphere with oxygen. Life remained mostly small and microscopic until about 580 million years
ago, when complex multicellular life arose, developed over time, and culminated in the Cambrian
Explosion about 541 million years ago. This event drove a rapid diversification of life forms on Earth
that produced most of the major phyla known today, and it marked the end of the Proterozoic Eon
and the beginning of the Cambrian Period of the Paleozoic Era. More than 99 percent of all species,
amounting to over five billion species,[16]that ever lived on Earth are estimated to
be extinct.[17][18] Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14
million,[19] of which about 1.2 million are documented, but over 86 percent have not been
described.[20] Scientists recently reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently
with only one-thousandth of one percent described.[21]
The Earth's crust has constantly changed since its formation. Likewise, life has constantly changed
since its first appearance. Species continue to evolve, taking on new forms, splitting into daughter
species or going extinct in the process of adapting or dying in response to ever-changing physical
environments. The process of plate tectonics continues to shape the Earth's continents and oceans
and the life they harbor. Human activity is now a dominant force affecting global change, adversely
affecting the biosphere, the Earth's surface, hydrosphere, and atmosphere, with the loss of wild
lands, over-exploitation of the oceans, production of greenhouse gases, degradation of the ozone
layer, and general degradation of soil, air, and water quality.