The origin of life. Find out the world. Ryabinina I.V.

On Earth today, life is extremely diverse and, one might say, ubiquitous. There are three kingdoms: plants, animals and mushrooms. The largest is the kingdom of animals, it contains at least 1.5 million different species - from unicellular amoebas and ciliates to huge whales and elephants. There are about 0.5 million species in the kingdom of plants, and among them there are also very small, unicellular algae, and giant sequoia, reaching several tens of meters in height. And the kingdom of mushrooms is quite numerous - it has at least 100 thousand species.

Life exists everywhere: on land and at sea, at a depth of several kilometers and in small dirty puddle on the asphalt, in the Arctic and in Antarctica, in the sultry hot deserts and on mountain peaks, and even in the craters of volcanoes. Living matter seems to envelop our planet with a continuous layer, and they call this layer a biosphere - from the Greek word BIOS - “life”.

But was it always the case? Let us imagine that we have a time machine, and we will go on it on a trip into the past. But first, get acquainted with the "route".

The whole history of the Earth is divided into large - more precisely, huge - temporary intervals, which are called geological eras. Geological eras, in turn, are divided into geological periods. And inside some geological periods, eras are distinguished (see table on the next turn).

We live in the era of Golutsen of the quarter period of the Cenozoic era.

So - let's go?