The 'Boring Billion' created the conditions for LIFE, study reveals

The 'Boring Billion' – a period in Earth's history between 1.8 billion and 850 million years ago – wasn't so boring after all, scientists reveal. 

In fact, the billion-year period paved the way for complex life such as humans to exist.

During the Boring Billion, shifting plate tectonics played a central role in transforming Earth's surface from toxic and unbreathable to one full of oxygen-rich, life-giving oceans, the experts show.

In this way, the Boring Billion paved the way for the modern era leading to the appearance of advanced, intelligent life.

Professor Müller, lead study author at the University of Sydney, said the Boring Billion 'helped shape the habitability of the Earth'. 

'Tectonics, climate and life co-evolved through deep time,' he said. 

The Boring Billion is commonly considered as Earth's dullest when nothing much happened to its climate, tectonic activity or biological evolution.

But this may be a myth, as studies in recent years have suggested quite the opposite. 

The research team, which also included experts from the University of Adelaide, developed a computer model plotting the evolution of the Earth from 1.8 billion years ago to the present. 

The model reconstructed changes in plate boundaries, continental margins and carbon exchange between the mantle, oceans and atmosphere. 

According to the team, an ancient supercontinent called Nuna existed near the start of the Boring Billion. 

Nuna included parts of what are now Asia, Australia and North America, as well as likely West Africa, Serbia, India and West Africa. 

This break-up set off a chain of events that reduced volcanic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and expanded shallow marine habitats rich in oxygen. 

By about 1.05 billion years ago, this fundamental change in atmospheric chemistry had triggered the appearance of the first eukaryotes.

Eukaryotes are organisms whose cells contain a defined nucleus alongside other membrane-bound structures. 

And the first eukaryotes were the ancestors of all complex life as we know it – such as plants, animals and fungi. 

What is the Boring Billion?

The 'boring billion' is a period of Earth's history considered unusually dull where not much happened, both geologically and biologically. 

It's said to have lasted between 1,800 million and 800 million years ago. 

The most advanced life on Earth was algae and the oxygen levels were far lower than they are today. 

But it is thought no severe ice ages or volcanic activity occurred, allowing preservation of the status quo for approximately a billion years.    

The first primitive eukaryotes, which lived in 'shallow marine environments', were pioneers in the sense they were aerobic, meaning they needed oxygen to grow and survive. 

'Shallow-water environments likely hosted extensive oxygenated and temperate seas, providing long-lived, stable environments for complex life to flourish,' the team said in a statement. 

By 900 million years ago, a new supercontinent had formed called Rodinia that incorporated almost all the landmasses on Earth. 

Rodinia broke apart approximately 750 million years ago, coinciding with the end of what's commonly considered the Boring Billion. 

Oxygen levels during the Boring Billion were far lower than they are today (it wasn't until 450 million years ago when plants gained a foothold on the land that oxygen soared). 

As for plate tectonics, they only formed any semblance of what we recognise as Earth in the last few hundred million years. 

The study, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, adds to the literature suggesting the 'Boring Billion' was far more dynamic than we thought. 

The term was coined in the late 1990s by English palaeontologist Martin Brasier to describe a geological and biological lull between 1.8 billion and 800 million years ago.

Read More

What lies beneath: Scientists discover a giant granite slab half the size of WALES under Antarctica

He was allegedly inspired by Roger Buick, who paraphrased Winston Churchill with the line 'never in the course of Earth’s history did so little happen to so much for so long'. 

More recently, scientists have given it more credit; University of Oxford experts have called it 'the geological waiting room for the modern era of the Phanerozoic leading to the appearance of intelligent life on Earth'. 

A study in 2017 found that the origin of photosynthesis in plants dated to 1.25 billion years ago during the period.

The era may have set the stage for the proliferation of more complex life forms that culminated 541 million years ago with the so-called Cambrian Explosion. 

The Cambrian Explosion saw a burst of new animal phyla, possibly due to a steep rise in oxygen, including arthropods with legs. 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LIFE ON EARTH 

Research is ongoing to more accurately date when different stages of life appeared on Earth, which which a over 4.5 billion years old.

3.8 billion years ago it's thought that first life arose in the form of simple cells

2.1 billion years ago multicellular life began to evolve.

800 million to 600 million years ago the first animals appeared, including the first arthropods and later fish.

475 million years ago saw the birth of plants on land.

400 years ago, insects and seeds appeared.

360 million years ago amphibians began to evolve and 300 million years ago, reptiles, with dinosaurs following soon afterwards.

200 million years ago the first mammals appeared.

150 million years ago birds began to develop.

130 million years ago saw the birth of flowers.

60 million years ago, primates arrived on Earth.

2.5 million years ago the genus Homo (including humans and our predecessors) arrived, leading to the evolution of anatomically modern humans 200,000 years ago.