Origins of The Earth

How The Earth Came Into Being

I watched a documentary on earth from the History Channel called How the Earth Was Made. The documentary discussed the origins of the earth and how it came into being billions of years ago; the journey the earth takes is illustrated and explained thoroughly. Along the way, the various life forms that inhabited the earth are also introduced and described. After watching this documentary, I am more enlightened on the bed of rock that we human beings call home. The documentary also drew my interest because of our scholar program’s name; seeing the earth from when it first formed, to current day, allowed me understand the global change on a grander scale.

The earth formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago, according to the documentary. In Physics, I learned about the Law of conservation of energy which states that energy is neither loss nor gained, only conserved. The documentary expanded on that concept because the earth has changed over its life time, but it still has the same amount of energy. For example, the earth used to be a ball of magma--thermal energy; over time the magma cooled, and the crust formed as a result. The energy from the previous phase was converted into the system, thus cooling down the earth much like an endothermic reaction. Chemistry also comes into play here because in an endothermic reaction, energy is put into the system from the environment, thus lowering the temperature. Since heat is energy, the earth simply converted it into another form to set the stage for organisms to inhabit the eventually inhabit the earth. Seeing the documentary with my background knowledge in science allowed me to apply the concepts that I learned.

In relation to global change, the evolution of life is also touched upon as well. The ocean is where life first emerged because it offered a natural barrier to the UV rays that the sun emitted. Another reason was because the earth did not have a safe atmosphere; toxic gases, such as methane and ammonia, polluted the air until enough oxygen built up. Plant like bacteria evolved for about 200 million years before oxygen began building up in the atmosphere. I always wondered where life originated from and to discover that the ocean was the start of it really intrigues me. The documentary then described how there was the eventual evolution of bacteria into complex organisms, and those organisms migrated to the land. Eventually dinosaurs came about and how they met their demise because of the meteor that crashed into the earth. The build-up to the eventual rise of mammals excited me the most out of this documentary; it was amazing to see how the earth was before and after mammals came into being.

The diagrams and models used in the documentary really emphasized the points they were making; I enjoyed being able to see the model of the changes the earth went through. It felt as if I was an entity in space, watching the changes seamlessly happen before me. I have watched a lot of documentaries in the past, but this is one of the few where I felt a genuine connection. The animation in the introduction shows a model of the earth rapidly changing over it’s lifetime; I felt as though this was a good technique to capture intial audience interest. The documentary later goes into detail about each period-i.e the ice age,etc- and does so in an informative, but not scientifically condescending way. I wondered how the History Channel would effectively inform the general public about the earth without their scientific jargon; the results turns out to be very positive. I feel as though a scientist and a normal consumer could both watch this documentary and have two positive, but different reactions; the scientist would feel as though the “dumbing down” of terms did little to detract from the content, and the consumer would feel enlightened because of the information being presented in a relatable manner.

This documentary truly enlightened me; before watching it, I barely had an understanding on the earth and its history. Even after watching this, I still feel as though I have only a general understanding; but I am inspired to do more research on our planet’s geology and learn even more about our history.

Last modified: 10 December 2013