The Protoplanet Hypothesis

The protoplanet hypothesis suggests that about 5 billion years ago a great cloud of gas
and dust rotated slowly in space. The cloud was at least 10 billion kilometers in diameter.
As time passed, the cloud shrank under the pull of its own gravitation or was made to
collapse by the explosion of a passing star. Most of the cloud's material gathered around
its own center. Its shrinking made it rotate faster, like a spinning whirlpool. The
compression of its material made its interior so hot that a powerful reaction, hydrogen
fusion, began and the core of the cloud blazed into a newborn sun. About 10 percent of
the material in the cloud formed a great plate-like disk surrounding the sun far into space.
Friction within the disk caused most of its mass to collect in a number of huge whirlpools
or eddies. These eddies shrank into more compact masses called protoplanets and later
formed planets and moons. Some uncollected material remains even today as comets,
meteoroids, and asteroids.

Origin of the Oceans

Scientists now agree that when Earth first formed, it had neither oceans nor atmosphere.
As the protoplanet changed to the planet Earth, it grew hotter. There were three sources
of heat: compression, radioactive minerals, and bombardment by showers of meteorites.
Radioactive minerals are natural sources of energy, much of which becomes heat energy.
Meteorites produce heat both by friction and by impact. When Earth became hot enough,
the common element iron melted. The molten iron sank toward the center of Earth,
forming a dense core. As the molten iron sank, it partially melted other earth materials that
it touched. Water and gases that had been trapped in those materials were released. The
molten earth materials separated into layers. As the materials separated, the steam and
gases that they had held escaped to the surface in volcanic eruptions. The steam that
escaped condensed into water that slowly accumulated as oceans.

Origin of the Atmosphere

The atmosphere that surrounds Earth today includes about 78 percent free nitrogen and
21 percent free oxygen. Free means these gases are not combined with other elements.
The remaining 1 percent is mostly other gases, such as argon, carbon dioxide, and
helium. (Water vapor is in the atmosphere too, but the amount varies with weather and
climate.) This present mixture of gases is very different from what scientists think Earth's
original atmosphere must have been. The original atmosphere is thought to have come
from volcanoes. It would have been like the mixture of gases that now erupts from
volcanoes. This mixture usually is over 50 percent water vapor with large amounts of
carbon dioxide and sulfur gases. However, the mixture contains no free oxygen! Almost
all forms of life on Earth need free oxygen. Where, then, did it come from? Scientists
think the atmosphere's first free oxygen came from the breakup of water molecules by
sunlight in the upper atmosphere. When simple green plants (Blue-green algae or
cyanobacteria grew into humps called stromatolites. Evidence of fossil stromatolites has
been found in rocks formed more than 3 billion years ago.) came into existence, they
added more free oxygen to the atmosphere by photosynthesis. In this process, green
plants manufacture sugars and starches from carbon dioxide and water in the presence of
sunlight. In photosynthesis, more than half of the oxygen present in the carbon dioxide
and water is not used. This excess oxygen is released into the atmosphere as free
oxygen.

Geology 12
Chapter 1