Stages of Earth's Atmosphere
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- Creation of Earth's Atmosphere
- The first major stage was the creation of earth’s atmosphere, and started after volcanoes started spewing out gases like methane, hydrogen, sulfide, and a lot of CO2. THis occurred around 4.6billion years ago.
- The Archean Eon
- The first major stage was the creation of earth’s atmosphere, and started after volcanoes started spewing out gases like methane, hydrogen, sulfide, and a lot of CO2. This occurred around 4.6billion years ago.
- Oxygen in the Atmosphere Starts Reacting with Methane
- The next stage happened from 2.6 billion to 400 million years ago, and the major change it brought was the oxygen being produced through photosynthesis reacting with methane in the atmosphere, resulting in the methane haze clearing and the sky turning blue.
- The Increase of Oxygen in the Earth's Atmosphere
- The next major stage happened between 700-550 million years ago and it saw the increase of oxygen in the atmosphere and the subsequent rise of creatures who used oxygen for energy and the decrease of creatures that found oxygen poisonous. This helped contribute to the cambrian explosion.
- Finds oxygen poisonous
- Carboniferous Period
- The next stage occurred from 400-290 million years ago and is called the Carboniferous Period. The period is categorized by the establishment of plants on land and oxygen levels rose from 20% of the earth’s atmosphere up to 35% at the highest point over the course of 50 million years starting from approximately 350 million years ago. During the period from roughly 319 to 299 million years ago, near the end of the period, large forests and swamps started appearing, and as dead and decaying matter was buried under the swamps with no access to oxygen, the climate cooled.
- Our Current Atmosphere
- The final and current stage is the modern atmosphere and it has run from roughly 290 million years ago to now. During most of this time, the earth has been a lot warmer than it currently is. This is, for a large part, because between the period of 200 million years ago to 45 million years ago, the ice caps were either very small or nonexistent. Because of this, winters became cooler and more plants and animals started inhabiting the polar regions.
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