THE HONG KONG POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF LAND SURVEYING AND GEO-INFORMATICS

SEMESTER 3, 2017-2018
LSGI1D03 LIVING ON A DYNAMIC EARTH

Name: Chan Chun Yin Student ID: 17052393D Department: RS

How Humans are Born and Their Footsteps with Mother Earth

Introduction

The 4.5 billion-year-old Mother Earth is the homeland to millions of creatures.

Humans, being one of the residents, have kept questioning on how this mysterious
and wondrous planet works. Even with continuous discovery milestones and
technological evolution, nevertheless, little do the intelligent know about it (J.
Lovelock & J.E. Lovelock, 2000).

The text, as said in its name, has mentioned 10 significant and popular research
questions about Mother Earth. These questions cover 4 prominent concepts of this
planet, including its origin, interior structure, habitability, alongside with hazards and
resources. They all reflect the enormous contribution from this planet to human
beings and their development, also stirring up controversies since no certain answer
and proof could be provided.

Therefore, focusing on the 10 research questions, this essay would be divided

into 2 parts. The prior part would explain the correlations between the questions and
human development. Meanwhile, the latter part would combine recent heated debates
and personal insight in analyzing one of the questions concerning the origin of life.

Part 1: The Importance of Research Questions

As mentioned, the 10 research questions surround 4 aspects of Mother Earth,

covering its origin, interior structure, habitability, and hazards and resources. They
have long been supporting development of modern civilization, both economically
and socially, from various means.
The Basics: Origin of the Homeland and Lives

Focusing on the origins of Earth and lives, many might concern the formation of
solar planets, the events during Earth’s ‘dark age’ and the beginning of life. These
questions account for the first steps in investigating the adaptability of living creatures
on this planet, thus they are especially prominent in the geo-biology sector. Only after
investigating effort by scientists would human beings achieve modern civilization.

Question 1: How did Earth and other planets form?

The solar system was formed after Big Bang of the universe. This provided
a suitable distance between the Earth and the Sun so that the atmosphere is
suitable and stable for human habitation. Furthermore, gravitational force would
not induce collisions during orbit. The above illustrations are the fruits when
scientists study this question. It guides them on the examination of the unique
chemical composition of Earth, also the stability of this planet among the
universe.

Question 2: What happened during Earth’s “dark age”?

The “dark age” refers to the period which photons, or light, were non-
existing. During this period, most of the rocks formed were metamorphosed at
high temperature and pressure (Alterman, Kazmierczak, Oren & Wright, 2006),
accounting for their current forms. Investigating this period could provide useful
information on geographic formation of Earth’s rock surfaces, allowing safe and
efficient land use upon striking a balance between urban development and
natural conservation.

Question 3: How did life begin?

This is the all-time popular question, also acting as Mother of all questions
in the scientific field. Two popular illustrations include the electrical spark theory
purposed by Miller and Urey (1959), which essentialities namely amino acids
and sugars were generated from organic gases and water, while water was
released from early meteorites. Such uniqueness of Mother Earth provides
references when looking into basic necessities and foundational structures of
living creatures, particularly human beings, on a cellular level.
Penetrating into Depth: Investigating the Interior

When the spotlight is on Earth’s interior, scientists might question on its working
mechanism and relative effects to the surface. Many are also interested in the rationale
behind plate tectonics and continents formation, alongside effects of Earth material
properties. Studying Earth geophysical properties allows humans to investigate its
internal structure and geological change over time. This improves safety and stability
of modern civilization, economically and socially, upon better prior surveying work.

Question 4: How does Earth’s interior work, and how does it affect the
surface?
The Earth is composed of a superficial thin crust and a deep core, with a
thick layer of mantle in between. The crust acts as mechanical support for lives,
while the core and mantle provide geothermal energy to the surface. Such
discoveries provide explanation to natural disasters, especially earthquakes and
volcanic eruptions. Acknowledging of their origin, magnitude measurements are
thus more reliable (Geller, 1997), allowing humans to deduce damages brought,
particularly in cities.

Question 5: Why does Earth have plate tectonics and continents?

Continents were formed when island arcs accumulated and subduction
became difficult (Dhuime, Hawkesworth & Cawood, 2011). Upon continuous
erosion, different plate tectonics namely mountains and basins are constructed
(Falvey, 1974). By understanding crustal evolution, humans could trace down
crustal change over decades to identify crustal tolerance on civilization
development. Therefore, urban planning could become more sustainable.

Question 6: How are Earth processes controlled by material properties?

Both physical and chemical properties contribute much to Earth processes,
namely erosion and plate tectonics. Tracing rock records, as the major materials
of Earth, enables humans to discover geological history and provide explanation
to landscape change and formation of sedimentary rocks over time (Kuiper et al,
2008). Therefore, humans could learn more about the geological features of their
homelands, even making sensible forecasting on future geology, benefiting urban
development.
Men Versus Wild: Relationships between Humans and Earth

From geological features abovementioned to atmospheric properties, Mother

Earth provides favourable conditions for human development. For years, researchers
have been analyzing life-Earth interactions, especially on climatic dynamics. This
induces predictions on future resources allocation, such as water as mentioned by
Vörösmarty, Green, Salisbury and Lammers (2000), which directly influences the fate
of human beings.

Question 7: What causes climate to change – and how much can it change?
Although global climate remains steady for the past 10000 years (Marcott,
Shakun, Clark & Mix, 2013), it might be affected by different factors, including
carbon dioxide concentration and solar radiations (Caldwell, Bornman, Ballaré,
Flint & Kulandaivelu, 2007), depending on regional geographical features owing
to topographic effects (Loarie et al., 2009). The above knowledge assists humans
in understanding climate phenomena, namely El Niño. Hence, they could
analyze climatic change rate, especially for global warming, which directly
threatens modern lifestyles when sea level continues to rise.

Question 8: How has life shaped Earth – and how has Earth shaped life?
The interaction between life and Earth is bilateral. Without life, oxygen
would not exist in the atmosphere (Gross, 2015). Meanwhile, without climatic
and geographical uniqueness of Earth, lives would not be born. Through
researching for the correlations between geology and biology, humans could
trace down major developmental stages of life, including mass extinction and
evolution. Also, as Gunderson (2001) suggested, they could better interpret their
role in the past, current and future ecological system.
Friend or Foe: Priceless Resources with Natural Hazards

Every mother provides the best care to her child, so does Earth. It generates
resources essential for human development, including metals from oceans, minerals
from rocks and gases from the atmosphere. Yet, natural disasters might be brought
along via earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Predictions on disasters could minimize
damages to modern societies and economies. Meanwhile, scientists spare no effort in
extracting resources from such catastrophes, benefiting civilization development.

Question 9: Can earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and their consequences

predicted?
Plate movement triggers earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, threatening
human security. Even with technological advancement and richer knowledge on
plate tectonics, due to their sudden nature, such disasters might not be accurately
predicted (Geller, Jackson, Kagan & Mulargia, 1997). Nevertheless, predictions
could act as warnings to humans, constructing a careful mindset. This is
especially significant for tsunamis, possibly after a large-magnitude earthquake.
With timely warnings and precaution measures, the harm on economy and lives
could be minimized.

Question 10: How do fluid flow and transport affect the human
environment?
Fluids, flowing underground and at the surface, control much on the
operation of Earth, from soil formation to energy transport. Nowadays, scientists
are still researching on the flowing mechanism of fluids underground. This
provides guidance to humans on extracting precious natural resources from
Mother Earth, ranging from nutritious soil for agriculture (Oñate, Celigueta,
Idelsohn, Salazar & Suárez, 2011) and geothermal energy for electricity
generation, which both have improved quality of life and contributed much to
modern civilization.
Part 2: Exploring the Origin of Life

The beginning of life, as the 3rd research question, remains the major mystery on
Earth. Not only is it the origin of vibrancy, but it is also the origin of all scientific
questions. With aiding of scientific evolution and understanding, there are several
explanations to the possible start of vibrancy on Earth. Yet, controversies are never at
rest due to different perspectives upon examining on this question, most commonly
from biological and chemical perspectives (Pascal, Pross & Sutherland, 2013).

Therefore, some popular and recent viewpoints would be summarized below,

with personal insight in analysis of this dilemmatic debate.

The Chemical Perspective: Igniting Life from its Essentialities

The electric spark theory, originated from the world-famous experiment

conducted by Miller in 1959, purposes that life essentialities were produced when
electric spark hits on organic gases. This theory is supported by recent research, in
which Lai (2008) suggested a “prebiotic reducing atmosphere” acted as basic
circumstances to generate amino acids, sugars purines and pyrimidines abundantly.
With such life necessities and under long time of micro-organism evolution, lives are
then maintained until nowadays.

The publication from Luskin (2015) had proposed an analogy of cake-baking to

the “prebiotic reducing atmosphere” abovementioned, in explaining the Miller
experiment. Luskin suggested that similar to baking a cake, which required adding
proper and adequate ingredients to the mold, when Miller was conducting the electric
spark experiment, he had added suitable amount of gas mixtures, including hydrogen,
ammonia and methane, before providing electric spark, as energy, from the circuit. A
“primordial soup” could then be established.

Luskin further explained the results of Miller’s experiment. Upon electric

sparkling on the gaseous mixtures, at least 19 out of the 20 life-building amino acids
were generated. The D-ribose type amino acid was especially essential since it was
the major contributor to ribonucleic acids, i.e. RNA, in genetics (Breslow & Cheng,
2009). Therefore, with continuation of amino acids generation, the basic model of life
was then built and developed to modern civilization.

However, Miller’s electric spark theory had faced challenges on its accuracy on
proving origin of life. As cited by Luskin (2015), some researchers namely Cairns-
Smith (1990) pointed out the “pre-biotic” chemicals were formed in small amounts
and degraded rapidly by ultraviolet radiation, not adequate to trigger generation of
amino acids for life initiating. Therefore, such chemical perspectives might not be
valid in explaining the origin of life, according to some researchers.

The Biological Perspective: Early Meteorites Shaping Lives

On the other hand, from a biological perspective, quite a number of researchers

pointed out that life could be originated from early meteorites. This is because of their
roles in generating life elements and storage of genetic information (Martins et al.,
2008), which somehow reflects that they had already been present, significantly as
well, upon formation of lives.

The mechanism which early meteorites supported lives was believed to be

similar to electric spark theory described in the previous section. With reference to the
research work from Pizzarello and Shock (2010), there was storage of “biogenic
elements” in early meteorites. Elements such as carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen
became complex organic molecules under extraterrestrial environments with “abiotic
cosmochemical evolution” (Lazcano, 2010), thanks to long-term processes of heat
and radiation (Cleaves, 2010). It could thus be seen that organic molecules
constructed lives when they accumulated as complex structures, but with a totally
different mechanism upon production when compared to electric spark approach.

Not only did early meteorites provide essentialities to initiate life, but it also
stored genetic information. This was a strong evidence demonstrating meteoritic
prominence on the beginning of life. Different kinds of nucleic acids, found in early
meteorites, gradually increased genetic complexity upon mutations, transcription and
translation processes (Sharov, 2009), contributing to the structure of lives later. For
instance, basic living creatures namely fossil bacteria and cyanobacteria were evolved
from conditions provided by Proterozoic and Archaean rocks, alongside with
carbonaceous meteorites (Dobretsov, Kolchanov, Rozanov & Zavarzin, 2008). The
above facts show that meteorites had an enormous impact on formation of lives, as
they built up genetic structures of living creatures.

Personal Insight: Balance Among Biochemical Perspectives

Both chemical and biological perspectives had rigid and rational evidence on
their influences on the beginning of life. Upon thorough examination, it could be
concluded that both perspectives share a lot of similarities, as suggested by Olson,
Donald, Dombkowski and Perry (2012). To explain such situation, these two
illustrations might be overlapped, yet valid, at the same time.

An analogy between early Earth and a global chemical reactor could be used to
describe the relationship between the two hypotheses from different viewpoints,
according to Stüeken et al. (2013). Inside this reactor, a reaction must be triggered
from certain conditions and reactants. When applying such analogy to the origin of
life, to trigger evolution of life from organic chemicals, the conditions to be fulfilled
were heat and radiations, as mentioned by Cleaves (2010). The reactants, referring to
the biological viewpoint, were elements stored in early meteorites. Upon striking of
the electric spark on meteoritic surfaces, as the electric spark theory described, stored
elements were released and reacted simultaneously, forming organic materials, with
nucleic acids being the most prominent one.

It shall be noted that although the viewpoints might be arisen from different
perspectives, they showed no contradiction against each other. Therefore, it was
possible, in my opinion, that the events described in the hypotheses could take place
at the same time.

Conclusion: Continuous Research to Boost Blossoming of Human Civilization

Mother Earth is a precious and mysterious place to live in. With technological
advancement and enrichment in knowledge on Earth sciences, humans are now
capable in solving more and more mysteries of their homeland. However, there are
still a lot more to answer with rigid evidence. One of the major mysteries is the origin
of life, which there are still thousands of controversies concerning on this question.
 Continuous curiosity on the special features of Mother Earth could bring great
improvements in human civilization. For instance, understanding plate tectonics
allows better understanding to natural disasters and resources, including earthquakes
and geothermal energy. Meanwhile, understanding earth processes, namely
weathering, could help us use the surrounding environments more efficiently and
safely. Without such knowledge on Mother Earth, modern civilization would not be as
blossoming as nowadays, while other scientific progresses would be hindered as well.

Hopefully, research progresses would be continued in the future to discover more

facts about this dynamic Earth, which is the beautiful homeland of millions of
creatures.

(2432 words)
References

Altermann, W., Kazmierczak, J., Oren, A., & Wright, D. T. (2006). Cyanobacterial calcification and its
rock‐building potential during 3.5 billion years of Earth history. Geobiology, 4(3), 147-166.

Breslow, R., & Cheng, Z. L. (2009). On the origin of terrestrial homochirality for nucleosides and
amino acids. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(23), 9144-9146.

Cairns-Smith, A. G. (1990). Seven clues to the origin of life: a scientific detective story. Cambridge
University Press.

Caldwell, M. M., Bornman, J. F., Ballaré, C. L., Flint, S. D., & Kulandaivelu, G. (2007). Terrestrial
ecosystems, increased solar ultraviolet radiation, and interactions with other climate change
factors. Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences, 6(3), 252-266.

Cleaves II, H. J. (2010). The origin of the biologically coded amino acids. Journal of theoretical
biology, 263(4), 490-498.

Dhuime, B., Hawkesworth, C., & Cawood, P. (2011). When continents formed. Science, 331(6014),
154-155.

Dobretsov, N., Kolchanov, N., Rozanov, A., & Zavarzin, G. (Eds.). (2008). Biosphere origin and
evolution (pp. 72). Springer Science + Business Media, LLC.

Falvey, D. A. (1974). The development of continental margins in plate tectonic theory. The APPEA
Journal, 14(1), 95-106.

Geller, R. J. (1997). Earthquake prediction: a critical review. Geophysical Journal International,

131(3), 425-450.

Geller, R. J., Jackson, D. D., Kagan, Y. Y., & Mulargia, F. (1997). Earthquakes cannot be predicted.
Science, 275(5306), 1616-1616.

Gross, M. (2015). How life shaped Earth.

Gunderson, L. H. (2001). Panarchy: understanding transformations in human and natural systems.

Island press.

Kuiper, K. F., Deino, A., Hilgen, F. J., Krijgsman, W., Renne, P. R., & Wijbrans, A. J. (2008).
Synchronizing rock clocks of Earth history. science, 320(5875), 500-504.

Lai, A. K. (2008). Origin of life. Astrophysics and Space Science, 317(3-4), 267-278.

Lazcano, A. (2010). Historical development of origins research. Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in
biology, a002089.

Loarie, S. R., Duffy, P. B., Hamilton, H., Asner, G. P., Field, C. B., & Ackerly, D. D. (2009). The
velocity of climate change. Nature, 462(7276), 1052.

Lovelock, J., & Lovelock, J. E. (2000). Gaia: A new look at life on earth. Oxford Paperbacks.

Luskin, C. (2015). Astrophysics and Space Science.

Marcott, S. A., Shakun, J. D., Clark, P. U., & Mix, A. C. (2013). A reconstruction of regional and
global temperature for the past 11,300 years. science, 339(6124), 1198-1201.
Martins, Z., Botta, O., Fogel, M. L., Sephton, M. A., Glavin, D. P., Watson, J. S., Dworkin, J. P.,
Schwartz, A. W. & Ehrenfreund, P. (2008). Extraterrestrial nucleobases in the Murchison meteorite.
Earth and planetary science Letters, 270(1-2), 130-136.

Miller, S. L. & Urey, H. C. (1959). Organic compound synthesis on the primitive earth. Science,
130(3370), 245-251.

Olson, K. R., Donald, J. A., Dombkowski, R. A., & Perry, S. F. (2012). Evolutionary and comparative
aspects of nitric oxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide. Respiratory physiology &
neurobiology, 184(2), 117-129.

Oñate, E., Celigueta, M. A., Idelsohn, S. R., Salazar, F., & Suárez, B. (2011). Possibilities of the
particle finite element method for fluid-soil-structure interaction problems. Computational Mechanics,
48(3), 307.

Pascal, R., Pross, A., & Sutherland, J. D. (2013). Towards an evolutionary theory of the origin of life
based on kinetics and thermodynamics. Open biology, 3(11), 130156.

Pizzarello, S., & Shock, E. (2010). The organic composition of carbonaceous meteorites: the
evolutionary story ahead of biochemistry. Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology, 2(3), a002105.

Sharov, A. A. (2009). Exponential increase of genetic complexity supports extra-terrestrial origin of

life. Journal of Cosmology, 1, 63-65.

Stüeken, E. E., Anderson, R. E., Bowman, J. S., Brazelton, W. J., Colangelo-Lillis, J., Goldman, A. D.,
Som, S. M., & Baross, J. A. (2013). Did life originate from a global chemical reactor?. Geobiology,
11(2), 101-126.

Vörösmarty, C. J., Green, P., Salisbury, J., & Lammers, R. B. (2000). Global water resources:
vulnerability from climate change and population growth. science, 289(5477), 284-288.