Abstract
The earth had existed for about 4500 million years. This corresponds to about a third of the time since the creation. The oldest animal fossils (multicelled) come from the time 500–1000 million years before the evolution of mankind. A dive through the primeval sea about 600 million years ago would be very colourless and unspectacular. Ten million years earlier, the earth had emerged from an ice age which had lasted for many million years with glaciers at the equator. The earth had over many million years the same appearance of the Jupiter moon Europa today, whose whole surface is covered by a very thick layer of ice. Sunlight and therefore photosynthesis were blocked and totally absent. Living organisms had a difficult time, so only the simplest organisms could exist in the oceans. The seafloor was covered by a solid mat of bacteria, and along the coasts grew, by the photosynthesis of blue algae, huge chalk towers, “stromatolites”. There was no trace of higher, differentiated animals.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bartl, R., Bartl, C. (2019). Evolution of the Skeleton. In: The Osteoporosis Manual. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00731-7_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00731-7_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-00730-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-00731-7
eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)