The Origin and Evolution of Earth: From the Big Bang to the Future of Human Existence

Overview

Course No. 1740

Explore the frontiers of science with this revolutionary course that rewrites the history of our planet as a single, compelling story involving the coevolution of rocks and life.

This course chronicles Earth’s history from the perspective of minerals, revealing how their diversity—unmatched elsewhere in the solar system—shaped life’s trajectory. Professor Robert Hazen, a pioneer in mineral evolution, guides you through 48 lectures spanning the big bang to humanity’s far future. Witness Earth’s dramatic transformations: from a black, basalt-covered world to blue oceans, gray continents, red iron-rich landscapes, and ice-white “Snowball Earth” phases. Key milestones include the moon’s violent formation, the Great Oxidation Event, the rise of plate tectonics, mass extinctions, and the Anthropocene epoch.

Video Lectures

Module 1: Cosmic Beginnings

1. Mineralogy and a New View of Earth (38 min)

• Discover how minerals and life coevolved, offering a revolutionary lens for understanding Earth’s history.

1. Origin and Evolution of the Early Universe (32 min)

• Journey from the big bang to the solar system’s birth, 9 billion years before Earth formed.

1. Origins of the Elements: Nucleosynthesis (33 min)

• Learn how stars forged Earth’s essential elements through supernovae.

1. Ur-Minerals: First Crystals in the Cosmos (32 min)

• Trace the earliest minerals, crystallized in dying stars.

1. Presolar Dust Grains: Chemistry Begins (32 min)

• Investigate microscopic stardust—the building blocks of our solar system.

Module 2: Solar System & Earth’s Formation

6. Coming to Grips with Deep Time (30 min)

• Grasp Earth’s 4.5-billion-year timeline and dating techniques.

6. The Birth of the Solar System (30 min)

• Compare our planetary system with exoplanets.

6. The Early Solar System: Terrestrial Planets (30 min)

• Explore how Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars formed.

6. Hints from the Gas Giants and Their Moons (30 min)

• Decipher clues about Earth’s history from Jupiter, Saturn, and beyond.

6. Meteorites: The Oldest Objects You Can Hold (29 min)

• Study ancient space rocks older than Earth itself.

Module 3: Earth’s Mineral Revolution

11. Mineral Evolution: Chondrite Meteorites (33 min)

• Unravel the story of chondrules—melted droplets from the infant sun.

11. Meteorite Types and Planetesimals (33 min)

• Examine achondrites, including moon and Mars fragments.

11. Achondrites and Geochemical Affinities (32 min)

• Probe Victor Goldschmidt’s classification of Earth’s early minerals.

11. The Accretion and Differentiation of Earth (34 min)

• Witness Earth’s violent assembly into core, mantle, and crust.

11. How Did the Moon Form? (30 min)

• Weigh theories before settling on the “big thwack” collision model.

11. The Big Thwack! (32 min)

• Relive the moon’s dramatic birth and its slow retreat from Earth.

Module 4: Earth’s Transformations

17. The “Big Six” Elements of Early Earth (33 min)

• Analyze oxygen, silicon, iron, and other elemental players.

17. The Black Earth: Peridotite to Basalt (34 min)

• Study Earth’s first rocks, born from magma oceans.

17. Origins of the Oceans (32 min)

• Track water’s arrival via volcanoes and comets.

17. Blue Earth and the Water Cycle (32 min)

• Hunt for hidden water underground and in minerals.

17. Earth and Mars vs. Mercury and the Moon (31 min)

• Contrast Earth’s mineral diversity with barren neighbors.

Module 5: Life & Earth’s Coevolution

22. Gray Earth: Clays and the Rise of Granite (33 min)

• Explore clay minerals and granite’s continental dominance.

22. Earth’s Mineralogy Takes Off: Pegmatites (30 min)

• Admire rare, giant crystals formed from molten granite.

22. Moving Continents and the Rock Cycle (30 min)

• Reconstruct early theories like continental drift.

22. Plate Tectonics Changes Everything (32 min)

• Unify earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountains under one theory.

22. Geochemistry to Biochemistry: Raw Materials (32 min)

• Link minerals to life’s organic building blocks.

22. Biomolecules: Select, Concentrate, Assemble (30 min)

• See how mineral surfaces may have sparked life.

Module 6: Oxygen & Explosions

28. Why Reproduction? World Enough and Time (31 min)

• Theorize life’s first self-copying molecules.

28. Eons, Eras, and Strategies of Early Life (30 min)

• Chart life’s first billion years (3.5–2.5 billion years ago).

28. Red Earth: The Great Oxidation Event (31 min)

• Witness photosynthesis’s planet-altering impact.

28. Earliest Microbial and Molecular Fossils? (31 min)

• Decode clues in ancient chert, shale, and stromatolites.

28. Microbial Mats and Mineral Evolution (31 min)

• Connect algae mats to Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere.

Module 7: Supercontinents & Crises

33. Earth’s Greatest Mineral Explosion (32 min)

• Tie mineral diversity spikes to supercontinent formation.

33. The Boring Billion? Cratons and Continents (31 min)

• Reassess a seemingly stagnant era of continental assembly.

33. The Supercontinent Cycle (31 min)

• Track Rodinia’s breakup and global superoceans.

33. Feedback Loops and Tipping Points (30 min)

• Study Earth’s climate instability 850 million years ago.

Module 8: Snowballs & Dinosaurs

37. Snowball Earth and Hothouse Earth (31 min)

• Probe back-to-back ice ages and extreme warming.

37. The Second Great Oxidation Event (30 min)

• Link oxygen surges to post-snowball life.

37. Deep Carbon: Deep Life, Fuels, and Methane (30 min)

• Investigate Earth’s hidden carbon cycle.

37. Biominerals and Early Animals (32 min)

• Meet trilobites and other mineral-dependent life.

Module 9: The Age of Humans

41. Between Rodinia and Pangaea: Plants on Land (31 min)

• Trace land colonization after ozone shielded Earth.

41. Life Speeds Up: Oxygen and Climate Swings (31 min)

• Navigate extinctions and innovations in the Paleozoic.

41. From the “Great Dying” to Dinosaurs (31 min)

• Uncover causes of the Permo-Triassic mass extinction.

41. Impact! From Dinosaurs to Mammals (33 min)

• Relive the asteroid that reshaped life 65 million years ago.

41. Humans and the Anthropocene Epoch (32 min)

• Confront humanity’s geologic-scale impact.

Module 10: Earth’s Far Future

46. The Next 5 Billion Years (31 min)

• Project Earth’s fate from continental shifts to solar expansion.

46. The Nearer Future (31 min)

• Forecast sea-level rise and climate change by 2125.

46. Coevolution of Geosphere and Biosphere (41 min)

• Reflect on 10 stages of mineral evolution—and an 11th?