Geological history of Earth
major geological occurrences in Earth's past
The geological history of Earth follows the major geological events in Earth's past based on the geologic time scale, a system of chronological measurement based on the study of the planet's rock layers (stratigraphy). Earth formed approximately 4.54 billion years ago through accretion from the solar nebula, a disk-shaped mass of dust and gas remaining from the formation of the Sun, which also formed the rest of the Solar System.
Initially, Earth was molten due to extreme volcanism and frequent collisions with other bodies. Eventually, the outer layer of the planet cooled to form a solid crust when water began accumulating in the atmosphere. The Moon formed soon afterwards, possibly as a result of the impact of a protoplanet with Earth. Outgassing and volcanic activity produced the primordial atmosphere. Condensing water vapor, augmented by ice delivered from asteroids, produced the oceans. However, in 2020, researchers reported that sufficient water to fill the oceans may have always been on Earth since the beginning of the planet's formation.
As the surface continually reshaped itself over hundreds of millions of years, continents formed and broke apart. They migrated across the surface, occasionally combining to form a supercontinent.
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This entry incorporates text from “Geological history of Earth” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.