Early Earth

Life timeline

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water

Simple life

photosynthesis

Eukaryotes

Complex
multicellular life

Land animals

Land plants

Dinosaurs    

Mammals

Flowers

 

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Earliest Earth

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Earliest water

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Earliest life
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Meteorite bombardment

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Earliest oxygen

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Atmospheric oxygen

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Oxygen Crisis

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Earliest sexual reproduction

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Earliest land life

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Earliest humans

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Axis scale: Millions of years.
also see {{Nature timeline}}

The early Earth is Earth in its first one billion years, or gigayear. On the geologic time scale, this comprises all of the Hadean eon (itself unofficially defined), as well as the Eoarchean and part of the Paleoarchean eras of the Archean eon.

This period of Earth's history involved the planet's formation from the solar nebula via a process known as accretion. This period also included the formation of the earliest atmosphere and hydrosphere. The earliest supracrustals (such as the Isua greenstone belt) date from the latter half of this period, about 3.8 gya, around the same time as peak Late Heavy Bombardment.

According to evidence from radiometric dating and other sources, Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago. Within its first billion years, life appeared in its oceans and began to affect its atmosphere and surface, promoting the proliferation of aerobic as well as anaerobic organisms. Since then, the combination of Earth's distance from the Sun, its physical properties and its geological history have allowed life to emerge, develop photosynthesis, and, later, evolve further and thrive. The earliest life on Earth arose at least 3.5 billion years ago. Earlier physical evidence of life include graphite, a biogenic substance, in 3.7-billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks discovered in southwestern Greenland, as well as, "remains of biotic life" found in 4.1-billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia. According to one of the researchers, "If life arose relatively quickly on Earth ... then it could be common in the universe."