Feature Earth

New fascination with Earth’s ‘Boring Billion’

1.8 billion years ago, low oxygen may not have hindered life after all

Nuna supercontinent

DULLSVILLE  Earth’s environment stagnated around 1.8 billion years ago. The breakup of the Nuna supercontinent, illustrated here during its disassembly 1.38 billion years ago, should have triggered an ice age but didn’t.

Nicolle Rager Fuller

By Thomas Sumner

- More than 2 years ago

Earth’s long history starts with an epic preamble: A collision with a Mars-sized space rock rips into the young planet and jettisons debris that forms the moon.