Exhaustion? Prosperity? — 07 Review “by dotted line”: The history of the biosphere from the emergence of life to human civilization

Earth's Functioning
A cursory examination: The history of the biosphere from the appearance of life to human civilization
Materials useful for understanding humanity's prospects

Some of the topics worthy of discussion in the course cannot be covered in detail here. This collection contains the theses we need to examine, and some references that will help understand these theses.
Of course, many "gaps" will remain here. We propose discussing them in the Google document (the link to which is in the Telegram group), which can be viewed here. Disagree? Have arguments not considered here? Can you add something? Express your opinion in the Google document!
All living organisms (including us) are part of their environment and cannot actually be fully separated from it
It may seem to us that we are something relatively independent from our surroundings. After all, any of us can move to another country, change profession, family, and even sex? Yes, we can. But we cannot erase our own history, and our personality will still remain primarily shaped by the state we were in before this change. This applies to us, as representatives of a global species... Any other creature is determined by its environment to a much greater extent...
The activity of Earth's interior, chthonic (maternal, primordial) energy is necessary to maintain an environment in which complex creatures can appear
We discussed how interior activity ensures plate tectonics. One of the main consequences of tectonics is the continuous ascent of substances from the interior to the surface (this is a beautiful geological concept). The elements contained in these substances become available for biogeochemical cycles. If there were no such ascent, water and air would first destroy the mountains, and then simply the land. Earth would be covered by an ocean one and a half kilometers deep. There would be light on the surface of this ocean, but all the elements necessary for complex life would be contained in the dark depths. Life under such conditions would probably be possible, but we cannot expect it to be complex.
The consequence of Earth's activity is the cycle of rock transformation and the formation of magmatic, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks
The products of rock destruction eventually end up in sedimentary rocks that form at the bottoms of bodies of water. As a result of tectonic plate movement, these sedimentary rocks enter the mantle, where they are subjected to temperature and pressure and transform into metamorphic rocks. Eventually, these rocks can melt and be erupted onto the surface (or beneath the surface) to form magmatic rocks, which will in turn be destroyed over time.
The appearance of such life as we can imagine is possible only in an environment with a diversity of elements and substances
This is why, by the way, life could not have appeared while the Universe was young: there were too few elements; stars had to "produce" them. This is why Carbon is particularly important for life: an element capable of forming very complex molecular "skeletons."
Organic substances are very widespread in the Universe; under certain conditions they form easily, and, in the case of complex molecules, they are destroyed fairly easily as well
Even nebulae containing a large proportion of organic substance have been found.
The widespread version of life's origin, according to which molecules randomly "jumped" and formed the first cell, cannot withstand any criticism. This is either a naive fairy tale or a "straw man" for opponents of the scientific worldview
Scientists could once really propose such versions: since there are enormous numbers of molecules interacting with each other, various combinations will arise. Why wouldn't some combination prove successful?
When it became clear what the complexity of living systems is, these ideas about random combinations that proved successful in one step should be forgotten. No. This is an appeal to the miraculous in a scientific-looking wrapper. Currently, these ideas are rather "promoted" by those trying to convince naive people that life was specially created. Very often for similar purposes, a manipulative method called "straw man" is used. The manipulator fights not with his real opponent, but with a distorted image of it. The version about "jumping" molecules turned out to be a very convenient artificial target for religious preachers trying to destroy understanding of questions belonging to the sphere of science.
These and subsequent theses are discussed, among other things, in this section of the textbook: Ecology: The Biology of Interaction. 2.12. (supplement) The Origin of Life. Pre-living systems
The cause of stability and environmental fitness is selection. The cause of complexity is prolonged, repeated selection
...and everything else is from the devil. We discussed why selection, in its broadest sense, is even the cause of human creativity. Attempts to define selection only in its narrow Darwinian sense (i.e., one that applies only to organisms) is another "straw man" construction. Selection in the broadest sense includes both selection of substances for stability and selection of chemical reactions for autocatalysis.
Chemical evolution is facilitated by periodic changes in conditions that cause shifts in chemical equilibrium in autocatalytic reactions
Temperature rises. Reactions that shift equilibrium in one direction become activated (let's say, the destruction of complex substances). If these reactions can proceed by different pathways, these pathways will compete with each other. In the course of reactions, molecules will arise that will promote the formation of similar molecules. There is nothing strange about this. Recall how the appearance of a crystal in a supersaturated solution causes further crystallization. The "seed" becomes a template on which similar molecules or complexes of molecules assemble; crystal growth demonstrates template-based assembly. Then conditions change and opposite reactions gain the advantage...
And even the very ability for autocatalysis can be the result of selection!
These things are described in sufficient detail in this section of the textbook for the integrated school course: "Natural Sciences. The Past, Present, and Possible Future of Humanity and the Biosphere." D2. Life and Natural Selection. Among other things, this page contains interesting fragments from TED talks devoted to the creation of artificial analogs of life.
An important transitional stage in life's evolution could have been the so-called "RNA world"
Modern life is built on the interaction of two classes of biopolymers—proteins and DNA. Proteins, among other things, perform enzymatic (catalytic) functions. DNA is the carrier of hereditary information. RNA can possess catalytic function (RNA catalysts are called ribozymes), although not as efficiently as proteins, and can store and transmit information (although less efficiently than DNA. Moreover, in all key processes in the cell where proteins and DNA interact, RNA is between them and performs key functions.
We can learn about the history of life on Earth thanks to the planet's "registrating structures"—sedimentary rocks. As soon as sedimentary rocks first appear—they already contain traces of life
Water is necessary for the creation of sedimentary rocks. Only on Earth did an ocean appear, and sedimentary rocks began forming on its floor, containing traces of life. The oldest known finds come from the Isua deposit in Greenland, 3.8 billion years old, and the Warrawoona-3 deposit in Australia, 3.5 billion years old (by the way, it is believed that in the times of Emperor Tiberius, the occupying ruler of Judea Pontius Pilate, at the demand of the populace, released the robber Barabbas instead of Jesus of Nazareth; these names converged in the names of two deposits from different sides of the planet). At that time, the ocean was still hot; due to higher pressure, its temperature could exceed 100°C. So life appeared almost in boiling water!
A good introduction to the history of life can be the 5 articles by Serhiy Yastrebov, published in 2016 in "Chemistry and Life":
"Seven Thresholds in the History of Life"
"The Oxygen Revolution and the Snowball Earth"
"The Cambrian Explosion"
"Life on Land: Flourishing, Crisis, and Revival"
"Eusociality and the Phenomenon of Human"
Thanks to the comparison of sedimentary rock sequences in different regions of Earth, a geochronological scale has been constructed—the relative sequence of geological time intervals
Nowhere on Earth does a complete sequence of rocks exist. It can be established which rocks in different regions were deposited simultaneously (primarily—by the fossils characteristic of them, index fossils). As a result of comparing different geological columns (rock sequences), it can be established which of the different layers were deposited earlier (and are located, in undisturbed sequences, lower, at greater depth). The generalized together general sequence of layers forms the geochronological scale. This is relative geological time (defined by the relations "earlier—later"). Absolute time is established by measuring the ratio of radioactive elements and their decay products in rocks. Absolute time dating is periodically refined; relative time dating remains (except in cases of misidentification) stable.
Among other things, this is discussed in this section of materials for the school course "Natural Sciences. The Past, Present, and Possible Future of Humanity and the Biosphere." D3. Life Changes the Planet and in this section of the university textbook: Ecology: The Biology of Interaction. 2.13. (supplement) The Geochronological Scale
One of the greatest turning points in Earth's history was the oxygen catastrophe (oxygen revolution), which occurred in the Siderian period, approximately 2.4 billion years ago
With the spread of cyanobacteria, oxygen (O2), a byproduct of their photosynthesis, began to significantly affect the environment, and was toxic to life at that time. Initially, oxygen was spent on oxidizing reducers in the environment. First of all, these were compounds of Fe2+ soluble in water, which oxidized to insoluble compounds of Fe3+. The oxygen released by photosynthetic organisms first oxidized all the reducers on the planet's surface, and then accumulated in excess. Changes in the oxidation potential of the environment (oxygen is released during the day, the reductive environment returns at night) caused the formation of jaspilites—banded iron ores.
In the Cryogenian period (850–630 million years ago), the entire Earth was covered by glaciers and was in a Snowball Earth state. This was probably a consequence of carbon dioxide binding during photosynthesis
The planet's temperature depends on how much heat it receives and how much it loses. The planet's heat loss is influenced by the greenhouse effect of the atmosphere: the atmosphere's opacity to the radiation at which the planet releases energy into space. Sunlight passes through the atmosphere, heats Earth, and Earth's secondary radiation is retained. Important greenhouse gases are CO2 (carbon dioxide), CH4 (methane), H2O (water vapor). Living organisms reduced the amount of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere, and the planet began to lose more energy. Temperature on Earth dropped, and its surface became covered with ice. This increased the planet's albedo (its ability to reflect light). A white planet scatters light much more efficiently than a dark one; this reduces the amount of heat it receives (note the example of positive feedback!).
The Snowball Earth state is a trap in which the planet could probably remain forever. However, increased volcanism led to large amounts of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere, strengthening the atmosphere's greenhouse properties, and the glaciers melted. Were the events that ended the Snowball Earth state random? There are versions that increased volcanism was one of the consequences of reduced heat flow through the planet's surface.