And would it be the same as it is today, if we did not exist at all?

Imagine for a moment that the last 125,000 years of Earth's history are recorded somewhere on tape—a thin, old-fashioned tape tucked between two metal spools. With each second, a certain amount of film is unwound from one cassette and wound onto another. Now imagine that there is an opportunity to stop the film, intervene in this process and change the direction of movement. We do a rewind.

Gradually, with each new turn of the reel, our current reality is removed. An area of ​​natural forests and woodland the size of 10 football fields is being restored every minute. During each year, an area slightly larger than Denmark is again covered with forest. It takes only 150 years to rewind everything that was lost. At the same time, the clusters of cities are receding like a concrete mass. Mega-cities shrink to the size of ordinary cities, then shrink to the level of villages and villages, and after that green swaths of untouched and uncultivated land reappear. Existing rivers are freed from dams. The ozone layer is being restored. The remains of the estimated 108 billion people who lived on the planet are removed from the earth, and fossil fuels, precious stones and metals, and other minerals extracted from the bowels are returned to their original place. Tons of garbage polluting the planet, including sulfur dioxide and carbon, are sucked out of the atmosphere.

Finally, we find ourselves at a point that seems unthinkably far from us - 125 thousand years ago. In geological terms, this may feel like yesterday, but the length of time between then and now represents the entirety of human existence on the planet. By rewinding the tape back to this point, we have eliminated virtually all traces of human impact on the Earth. And what happened?

125,000 years ago, the Earth was in the middle of the Eemian Interglacial, which lasted 15,000 years and was a temperature phase between longer and colder ice ages. Suddenly the whole world became warm and green. In the northern hemisphere, continental snow cover has receded south almost to the level of Germany in Europe and Illinois in North America.

“Then it was a little warmer than it is today, and the sea level may have been a little higher and at its maximum,” emphasizes Ian Tattersall, curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in the City of New York ( American Museum of Natural History).

One of the beneficiaries of this warming has been Homo sapiens- a reasonable person. Our species first appeared about 200 thousand years ago in eastern Africa, 125 thousand years ago the population of this species was probably somewhere between 10-100 thousand individuals. They earned their own food, hunted and made the first raids, leaving the homes of their ancestors.

However, we were not alone. “At that time, there were at least three lines of hominids,” notes Tattersall, an expert in early human evolution. - In Africa there was a reasonable man ( Homo sapiens); Homo erectus settled in the eastern part of Asia ( Homo erectus), which subsequently became extinct; and Neanderthals lived in Europe.”

Other members of the human race, both unknown and partially known to us, struggled to survive in other parts of the planet. “No one knows what happened in Africa,” Tattersall said. “There were hominids in Africa that looked very different from modern Homo sapiens.”

Large animals also abounded in the world—whales in the ocean and gigantic herds of herbivores on land. “I think that if it were possible to teleport to that world, then you would immediately pay attention to the megafauna,” emphasizes environmental historian Jed Kaplan from the Interdisciplinary Department of Environmental Studies at the University of Geneva in Switzerland (University of Geneva "s Institute for Environmental Sciences). - You would find huge herds of animals moving around the world. There would be woolly mammoths that inhabited the Arctic. And you would undoubtedly be able to see bison. In Europe, you could find large cats, and in America there would probably be a lot of horses, and also a large number of bears, wolves, and also a lot of herd animals.

Going beyond nature

But then, without any warning, everything changed. Or, to be precise, human beings first changed, and then the same thing happened to the outside world. “Something terrible happened right at the moment when people began to behave in a modern way, and this began 100,000 years ago,” says Tattersall. “And it was at that time that human beings, in a certain sense, went beyond nature, found themselves in opposition to it, and began to do all the stupid things that we are very familiar with today.”

Reading the list of stupid things Tattersall talks about is sobering. In just 2,000 years before the birth of Christ, the world population was several tens of millions. In 1700, after the birth of Christ, there were already 600 million people on the planet; and today their number is slightly more than 7 billion and continues to increase, according to experts, by 220 thousand people a day. And that's just human beings. According to the FAO, the global cattle population is 1.4 billion, and in addition, at any given time, there are about a billion more pigs and sheep, as well as 19 billion chickens, that is, almost three for every person.

According to the data we have, we use more energy today than ever before. In the 20th century alone, its consumption increased 16 times. Since 1870, an estimated 944 billion barrels of oil, or 135 billion tons, have been extracted from the Earth's interior, according to a 2009 article in the International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology. In 2011 alone, the United States produced more than a billion tons of coal, and China - 3 times more.

We have also radically changed the landscape. Agriculture, coupled with the use of fire almost everywhere, subjugated the environment and gave it a different form. In many regions, cultivated land has replaced natural vegetation. From 30% to 50% of the earth's surface is currently used in one way or another for the benefit of man, and we consume more than half of the available fresh water.

Especially rice production has flattened all ecosystems. “People are creating small dams,” said Earle Ellis, an environmental specialist at the University of Maryland. “And it changes the whole sediment movement in the river basins. The goal is to create wetlands suitable for rice cultivation in many places. As a result, a large number of areas have become flatter. It makes an impression."

There are very few places left in the modern world that look the way they would if there were no human intervention at all. “There are very few landscapes left untouched, especially in Europe,” says Kaplan. - There are practically no forests left where you could see large dead trees just lying on the ground. It's incredibly rare."

Just from the moment when man began to oppose himself to still preserved nature, people spread throughout the world like seeds driven by gusts of wind, and as a result, about 125 thousand years ago they settled in the Middle East, 50 thousand years ago - in South Asia , 43 thousand years ago - in Europe, 40 thousand years ago - in Australia and in both Americas in the period from 30 thousand to 15 thousand years ago. The last heavily populated territory was New Zealand, and this happened about 700 years ago.

Everywhere people went, they brought animals with them - some deliberately (dogs, cats, pigs), and others accidentally (rats). The introduction of alien animal species into a delicately balanced ecosystem can have serious and irreversible consequences, says Ellis, especially for rats: “Their impact on the ecosystem is very large. All living creatures that create nests for themselves on the ground or in any other place accessible to rats are doomed.”

Of course, we ourselves are effective killers. As you know, many species of animals were exterminated as a result of hunting or persecution, and the dodos are the most famous example in this regard (their last confirmed sighting was recorded in 1662). Also vanished: Steller's sea cows (1768), nilgai antelope (about 1800), Mauritian blue dove (1826), flightless auk (1852), sea mink (about 1860), Falkland wolf (1876), passenger pigeon (1914), and also Caribbean monk seal (1952). Many other species have also disappeared in our memory. Human beings are marching on the planet, and behind them, one after another, waves roll in, exterminating megafauna. The reasons for this are still being debated, but many are pointing the finger at us. “I actually believe that human beings contributed to the extinction of numerous species of megafauna,” notes Kaplan.

So, for example, 15 thousand years ago, human beings penetrated through Siberia to North America. “An unprecedented period of extermination has begun,” said Bill Ruddiman, climate scientist at the University of Virginia. “For this, something completely new was needed, and this new one turned out to be human beings.”

“The American West, the plains there, had a diversity that was much richer than what today is the Serengeti National Park (Serengeti), — says Ruddiman. “It was an amazing place. In addition to mammoths and mastodons, saber-toothed tigers, horses, camels, giant ground sloths lived there - all these species became extinct within a fairly short period of time. The most reliable evidence suggests that this happened about 15,000 years ago.”

Today, the vast—and mostly empty—spaces of the American West are vastly different from what they looked like 125,000 years ago.

The destruction of large animals by man has had an impact on the landscape, which is noticeable almost everywhere. “Wide spaces used to be semi-open, they became so as a result of the existence of a large number of grazing animals that feed on grass and branches, as well as predators,” says Kaplan. — It is important to remember that landscapes are also shaped by animals. Huge herds of bison trampled down small trees and thus left the space open - of course, not to the same extent as the man who used the fire, but this influence was undoubtedly noticeable.

water world

In addition, we have devastated the oceans. A study published in 2010 found that the United Kingdom's fishing fleet today has to work 17 times as hard as it did in the 1880s to catch the same amount of fish. FAO estimates that more than half of the world's coastal fish resources are overfished.

Whaling has also changed the oceans beyond recognition. During the 20th century, some species of whales were on the verge of extinction, and their populations have not yet been restored. A controversial study published in the journal Science claims that the whale population was significantly larger before they were hunted than previously thought. According to this study, there were once 1.5 million humpback whales in the world, and not 100,000, as experts from the International Whaling Commission believe. The same can be said about minke whales, polar whales and sperm whales.

We have also changed the climate. In May of this year, the content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the first time in millions of years exceeded 400 ppm; 125 thousand years ago, its content was 275 ppm. This increase is partly due to the use of fossil fuels, as well as a decrease in the number of forests, which for millions of years served as a virtually bottomless carbon sink.

This impact left a noticeable imprint on the ice on our planet. All over the world, glaciers began to shrink, and in some places they disappeared altogether. The US National Snow and Ice Data Center, organized at the University of Colorado in Boulder, monitors approximately 130,000 glaciers around the world. Some of them are increasing, but much more are decreasing. In general, we can say that for every glacier that increases in size, there are at least 10 shrinking ones. At the time of its creation in 1910, Montana Glacier National Park had 150 glaciers. Today their number does not exceed 30, and they have all shrunk in size. In 2009, the Chacaltaya glacier in Bolivia disappeared, and at one time it was the highest place in the world where ski lifts were located. The ice cover in the polar latitudes is being destroyed, and ice floes the size of a city are breaking off from it. In July of this year, a 30-kilometer crack in a glacier called "Pine Island" (Pine Island glacier) in Antarctica led to the formation of an iceberg the size of New York.

As a result of rewinding the tape of time, all traces of human influence on planet Earth disappear. And now, just for fun, let's play another game - remove the reasonable man altogether. Imagine that 125,000 years ago, a small number of our ancestors in eastern Africa would have been wiped out by some kind of catastrophe - a deadly virus, or maybe a natural disaster. And now let's fast forward the tape. What would our planet look like today if there were no modern human beings on it?

In some respects, the answer seems obvious: it would look much the same as it did 125,000 years ago. “We would have a continuously existing biosphere, and it would be such that it is even difficult for us to imagine. That is, there would be forests, savannahs and the like - and so on the entire surface of the planet, - emphasizes Jan Zalasiewicz, a geologist from the University of Leicester, located in the United Kingdom. No roads, no fields. No cities. Nothing of that sort." Large animals would exist in abundance on Earth, and whales and fish would be abundant in the seas.

However, this could not continue for a long time, Ruddiman believes. If human beings had died out 125,000 years ago, we would be entering a new ice age today. Glaciers would increase their size and move forward. In itself, this is a controversial idea, and Ruddiman has been criticized for it. However, today, ten years after he first expressed it, many climatologists agree with him.

“If you remove the human impact, there will be much more ice in the seas, and the tundra in the Arctic Circle will also increase in area,” he notes. “The boreal forests would have retreated and, most importantly, the ice cover would have increased in many northern regions — in the northern part of the Rocky Mountains, in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, in parts of northern Siberia. These are the earliest stages of the Ice Age. And that's the single most significant change."

Or maybe things would have turned out differently. It is possible that another human species, for example, Neanderthals, Homo erectus, or some hitherto unknown species, could take our place, and it would begin to determine everything that happens on the planet instead of us.

Tattersall doubts. “Having established themselves on Earth, would they follow our example? he asks. “Would they become a substitute for a reasonable person, which would indicate the existence of a certain kind of inevitability regarding what happened to us? I think it's unlikely."

However, there is an excellent counterargument to this.

“There’s also this concept, convergent evolution, which is that if we hadn’t come and done it, someone else would have done it,” says David Grinspoon, curator of astrobiology at the Museum. nature and science in Denver, Colorado. “In that case, there would be selective pressure on other species that would push towards the path of development that we have taken, and where there is feedback between big brains, language and abstract thinking, as well as the development of agriculture. If the scenario is literally such that Homo sapiens dies out and the overall landscape remains, then perhaps something similar would happen. It wouldn't be exactly the same because there's a lot of randomness and it would probably take longer."

In short, all of this would have happened anyway. Perhaps the formation of the modern version of the Earth and our place on it was inevitable. Delete Homo sapiens out of this equation, restore forests and megafauna, and then maybe in 100 thousand years we will again get the same result - our greatest works, our achievements and our mistakes. Or at least something similar.

“I would like to have a magic crystal or some kind of alternative world viewfinder,” Grinspoon admits. “It would be great to know.”

Modern scientists are engaged in a lively debate regarding the role and influence of extraterrestrial civilizations on the development of mankind. Some argue that such hypotheses are devoid of scientific justification and strange phenomena can be explained in terms of meteorology, geology, as well as secret weapons tests. Others give convincing arguments for the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations that are watching the development of earthly civilization.

What remains in the shadows...

The greatest attention is paid to inexplicable celestial phenomena, the existence of which is rather difficult to prove. At the same time, many video and photographic materials that capture unidentified flying objects turn out to be fakes. It turns out that there is no 100% evidence of the existence of UFOs. After all, eyewitness accounts can be false, as well as filming materials.

The contrast of the hype around strange flying objects is the concealment of material facts that testify to the existence of highly developed civilizations on Earth several million years ago.

The first fact that makes you wonder is melted minerals. They are found in depressions, similar to craters, formed after the fall of a meteorite. This is a completely logical explanation, if not one “But”. The found minerals could turn into glass only by sintering at the temperature that gives a nuclear explosion. This assumption is confirmed by the remains of radioactive isotopes in the soil of craters and the absence of comet or asteroid materials in them.

This means that several million years ago, nuclear weapons were tested or used in clashes between unknown civilizations on planet Earth. This means that before the appearance of man, highly developed beings dominated the planet.

Another confirmation of this hypothesis is the underwater cities discovered near the Japanese archipelago of Okinawa. These are cyclopean buildings made of huge blocks of marble. According to scientists, the most modern, powerful technology that a person has does not allow the construction of such buildings.

Such conclusions mean only one thing - these cities were built by those who were far ahead of modern humanity in their development. Were they really aliens who were trying to master the Earth? But then why did they disappear without a trace or preferred to observe the development of mankind from above, without interfering in its affairs?

More plausible is the version that there was once a powerful, highly developed civilization on Earth. At a certain point, she reached the peak of her development and a conflict began with the use of super-powerful weapons, which led to her death. At the same time, a person is the heir to these mythical creatures. The rulers hide this truth from the layman, since it is easy to draw an analogy between the hypothesis of the civilization of the "Titans" and modern trends in the development of mankind.

The conclusion is not comforting - our civilization is steadily moving towards the peak of technological power, which will inevitably lead to death. Therefore, it is much easier to develop the topic of outsiders - aliens and UFOs.

Evidence contained in the ancient epic

The mythology of many peoples tells about the existence of strange creatures. This is most clearly expressed in the Indian Ancient epic. Mahabharata or "The Great Tale of the Descendants of Bharata" tells about the confrontation between the two royal dynasties of the Pandavas and Kauravas. And everything would be fine, but against each other they use weapons that have incredible destructive power. The description of its action is very similar to the explosion of an atomic bomb. The question arises, where could the author of the Mahabharata, sage Vyase, get such information that suspiciously accurately describes the achievement of the critical mass of the atom?

Another interesting fact is the ancient Greek myths, where the gods appear in the guise of people. But at the same time they have supernatural powers. However, not all gods live on Olympus. For example, Hephaestus forges armor in an underground workshop, Hades guards the Kingdom of the Dead there, Poseidon controls the seas. This means that developed beings lived not only in the sky, but also in the depths of the earth's crust, the depths of the ocean.

Similar examples can be found in the legends of every nation. Here only the names of the gods and the circumstances of their appearance change, otherwise everything is the same. Superpowerful creatures with inexplicable strength, capable of burning vast territories. Doesn't this description sound like modern weapons that can turn a city into a scorched desert in a few minutes!

Finally, the most famous fact is the mysterious Atlantis. According to legend, it was flooded as a result of a large-scale cataclysm. But what, besides super-powerful weapons, could destroy the developed Atlantes, couldn't they withstand the usual flood? This is a rhetorical question.

All of the above facts are proof of the existence of life on Earth long before the appearance of man. Perhaps the current civilization is already 10 or 15 in a row and people will face the same fate as their predecessors - complete destruction. After that, a new round of development of life on the planet will begin. And this will continue until the concept of harmonious development is found without an arms race and deadly viruses that are being developed in secret laboratories.

Why is the truth being hidden?

The theory of life cycles on planet Earth is not taken seriously and frankly relegated to the background. She prefers the teachings of Darwin, which does not fully explain and display a short stage in the development of mankind. And the hypothesis of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations that secretly control humanity, monitor it or explore it. But why is this happening?

There are two reasons to deny or hide the existence of dozens of super-advanced civilizations before the appearance of man:

Firstly, it contradicts the concept of exclusivity, where people are the crown of development and creation;

Secondly, the possibility of realizing that it is necessary to radically change the existing way of life so as not to end up as sadly as the predecessors.

It is quite possible that humanity has already passed the point of no return and it is simply being carefully hidden.

The science

Life has existed since before the appearance of the Earth and, possibly, was outside the solar system scientists say.

Two geneticists applied their knowledge of computer science and biology and came to the conclusion that organic life first appeared long before our planet.

Alexey Sharov from the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, USA and theoretical biologist Richard Gordon applied the scientific Moore's law to make a mathematical calculation.

Moore's Law states that the complexity of computers is increasing exponentially, that is, the number of transistors on a chip chip is doubling every 2 years. Geneticists have replaced transistors with nucleotides - the building blocks of DNA and RNA and calculated when life arose on Earth

The results showed that life appeared about 10 billion years ago, that is, much earlier than the estimated age of the Earth - 4.5 billion years ago.

How is this possible? Scientists explained that when our solar system was forming, organisms similar to bacteria or simple nucleotides from older parts of the galaxy came to Earth along with comets, asteroids and other inorganic space debris.

In science, this process is called panspermia.

Although many may be skeptical of such an idea, scientists believe that bacterial spore pollution from space is the most plausible hypothesis for the origin of life on Earth.

"We are 99 percent sure that life appeared before the Earth, 1 percent is left for some ridiculous accident that we did not take into account," Sharov explained.

Origin of life on earth

How did life originate on earth? There are several theories on this.

Development of life on Earth

The earth has been around for a little over 4.5 billion years. The beginning was quite brutal, when meteorites constantly fell to Earth. When this period ended, the Earth cooled and a crust formed on its surface.

As such, there were no continents - only the oceans with small islands. Erosion, sedimentation, and volcanic activity eventually created small primary continents that grew until they reached their current size 2.5 billion years ago.

Throughout history, the earth has undergone many geological and biological changes.

Brief stages of life on Earth:

- 3.8 billion years ago the first form of life appeared - prokaryotes

- 2.1 billion years ago multicellular life forms appeared

- 1.5 billion years ago eukaryotes appeared - cells containing a nucleus

- 200 million years ago appeared kind Homo sapiens(smart person)

Many of us watched Jurassic Park and admired the giant monsters recreated by technology. However, our knowledge of dinosaurs is often limited to what is presented in this nostalgic film. We publish 13 facts that will surprise you.

Walt Disney insisted on an anatomically incorrect depiction of the T-Rex

In the cartoon "Fantasy" (1940), a tyrannosaurus is depicted with three fingers on its front limbs. In fact, tyrannosaurs have only two fingers. The famous cartoonist added another one, as it looks scarier and more familiar to the human eye.

Dinosaurs ruled the earth for 160 million years

Reptiles have lived on Earth since before the advent of dinosaurs. About 300 million years ago, global warming occurred, which caused an evolutionary explosion among reptiles. The first dinosaurs appeared on Earth in the Mesozoic era about 230 million years ago, and the mass extinction of these giant reptiles occurred 65 million years ago. For comparison, the age of the oldest remains of Homo sapiens is only 200 thousand years.

Dinosaur extinction was not instantaneous

Experts believe that dinosaurs were already on the brink of extinction when the asteroid hit Earth. According to the biospheric hypothesis, the disappearance of dinosaurs predetermined the appearance of flowering plants, which significantly changed the food chains in ecosystems and the gradual climate change caused by continental drift.

41% of Americans believe dinosaurs and humans existed in the same era

41% of American adults believe that dinosaurs and humans lived side by side. Of course, this is not true. But next to a man on Earth live birds, which are direct descendants of dinosaurs. Most researchers are inclined to believe that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs from the maniraptor group.

The word "dinosaur" appeared in the 19th century

In 1824, the President of the Royal Geological Society, William Buckland, made a presentation on the discovery made in 1815 in Great Britain. They were some giant bones. Buckland classified the find as the remains of a giant predatory lizard and called it a megalosaurus - "a huge lizard." In the two decades since Buckland's report, biologists have unearthed other colossal remains. In 1842, the English biologist Richard Owen stated the similarities between the described new species of lizards and their difference from modern reptiles. He identified these in a special suborder, calling it Dinosauria (Latin for "terrible lizard").

Velociraptors in Jurassic Park are wrong

Velociraptors in the Jurassic Park movie are huge bloodthirsty pangolins that hunted in packs and most often attacked people. In fact, Velociraptors were only 50-80 cm tall and never hunted in packs. But the closest relatives of these dinosaurs, Deinonychus, were twice the size of Velociraptors and often huddled in groups for hunting. The scriptwriter of the film, Michael Crichton, was based on a reconstruction of Deinonychus when writing.

Dilophosaurus didn't spit venom

Another mistake in Jurassic Park: screenwriter Michael Crichton attributed the weakness of the Dilophosaurus jaws to the fact that he hunted by hitting the victim with poisonous saliva sprayed over a long distance. This was done solely for dramatic effect: Dilophosaurus was not poisonous at all.

T-Rex was a scavenger

Many used to think that the tyrannosaurus rex is the most bloodthirsty hunter of the Jurassic period. However, scientists have long argued about its diet. Some paleontologists have argued that the regal T-Rex was actually a scavenger, as they believe its teeth were not adapted for hunting. However, now scientists have come to the conclusion that tyrannosaurs could eat both fresh meat and carrion at the same time. Younger dinosaurs had to hunt for food, while older dinosaurs took prey from the young.

Some lizards weighed 60 tons

The largest dinosaur is considered to be a dreadnoughtus from the genus of titanosaurs. Its length was about 26 meters, and its weight was 59.3 tons. This corresponds to the weight of a dozen African elephants or seven T-Rex. The giant lizard was named after the largest warships of the early twentieth century. This dinosaur was discovered in 2014. It is assumed that the discovered dreadnought died at the time of the flood of the ancient river: under the weight of the animal, the soil turned into a kind of quicksand and swallowed up the colossal reptile.

Stegosaurus brain is very light

It is widely believed that the brain of a Stegosaurus was the size of a walnut. Indeed, in 2013, paleontologist Lawrence Whitmer revealed in a Facebook post that he and his colleagues had come up with a new unit for measuring the dinosaur brain, the walnut, and it was misrepresented by the press. What the scientist actually meant was that the brain of a Stegosaurus (which is actually the size of a dog) looks like a walnut on the scale of these animals. Indeed, it is very light: 70 grams per 2 tons of live weight. However, in the spinal canal of Stegosaurus there is an extension filled with nervous tissue. Scientists called it the "second brain" of the dinosaur. This expansion is now thought to be responsible for supplying the nervous system with glycogen.

Sauropods swallowed stones

It is known that sauropods (these are herbivorous dinosaurs, including brachiosaurs and diplodocus) swallowed small stones to improve digestion. Birds and crocodiles inherited this tradition from their distant ancestors.

Dinosaur eggs are not always white

Dinosaur eggs are usually white. However, in 2015, scientists discovered pigments that colored the shell blue and green. The pigments biliverdin and protoporphyrin are found in the eggs of some ancient bird orders. Dinosaur eggs of the species Heyuannia huangi had a camouflage coloration similar to the color of the eggs of modern emus.

Soft tissues can be stored for millions of years

In 1981, amateur paleontologists discovered the remains of a dinosaur that was later named Scipionyx samniticus (Scipio's claw). This find became famous because of the unique preservation of fossilized soft tissues and internal organs such as muscles and intestines, as well as the internal structure of some muscle and bone cells.

Even before the appearance of man, events took place on Earth that changed our planet for millions of years. The seas repeatedly attacked the land, eroding and destroying it; mountain ranges rose from the waters of the sea. They, in turn, were washed away by rain and snow waters, rivers that cut into their slopes, and were worn out by glaciers descending from mountain peaks. At the bottom of the seas, on islands and on the continents, volcanoes erupted molten lavas that covered vast areas and changed the face of the Earth beyond recognition.

Winds in the deserts dispelled mountain ranges to dust, transported and deposited powerful layers of sand that accumulated over vast expanses of our planet.

But how could a person know what was happening on Earth before his appearance?

All those changes that the globe has undergone since the formation of the earth's crust on it and up to the present time are studied by historical geology. She finds out where in the past there were seas and where land, where volcanoes erupted, where mountains rose.

Historical geology establishes not only the events that took place many millions of years ago on Earth, but also their sequence: what happened before and what later.

GEOLOGY

Geology is a system of sciences about the history of the development of the Earth: the hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere and, in particular, the earth's crust, its composition, structure, movements, evolution, as well as the placement of minerals in it. Modern geology is divided into a number of branches.

Mineralogy is the science of natural chemical compounds that are homogeneous in chemical composition and physical properties of minerals. Petrography studies rocks from the point of view of their mineralogical and chemical composition, geological features (conditions of occurrence, patterns of distribution, origin and changes in the earth's crust and on the surface of the earth). Recently, lithology, which studies sedimentary rocks, and petrology, igneous and metamorphic rocks, have been distinguished from petrography. The processes that create minerals and rocks, change their composition and conditions of occurrence, transform the relief, are studied by dynamic geology.

Phenomena associated with tectonic movements are considered geotectonics - the doctrine of the structure and deformation of the earth's crust, the sequence, time and conditions for the formation of structures. The patterns of transformation of the face of the Earth and the structure of the earth's crust during geological time are studied by historical geology. Paleontology is closely related to it - the science of extinct (fossil) organisms and the development of the organic world throughout the geological history of the Earth. Based on the study of the remains of organisms and traces of their vital activity, the relative age of the deposits is established, and the conditions for the formation of minerals are determined. Regional geology studies the earth's crust of individual countries, continents, and regions.