250 Years of Industrial Consumption and Transformation of Nature: Impacts on Global Ecosystems and Life E-Book
Hubert Engelbrecht
32,64 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Bentham Science Publishers
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Anthropogenic changes in the environment, caused by 250 years of economic growth and utilization of fuel and mineral resources, have considerably impacted the natural environment. The resulting physical and chemical alterations to the Earth's sphere and our adaptive responses in the biosphere are detailed in this reference book. Readers will learn about concepts relevant to Earth’s history, the evolution of life, economy, ecology, environmental history, biology, and medicine and how these concepts can be linked to environmental change. The scope of this interdisciplinary work entails to convey the true degree of responsibility for the universal consequences of ecosystem degradation resulting from industrial processing, human consumption and the transformation of natural sites due to industrialization and urbanization.
Topics covered in the book include:
-ecosystem transformations by natural and anthropogenic forces
-the Anthropocene epoch
-a short history of industrialization
-environmental sites and the impact of socio-economic influences
-the current environmental crisis,
This textbook is intended for graduate students in economics, civil engineering, architecture, agronomics, forestry, technical and mining sciences, political sciences, business studies and humanities. General readers who wish to understand the basic philosophy behind environmental studies and their relation to human activity can also benefit from this book.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 553
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
Ähnliche
250 Years of Industrial
Consumption and Transformation of Nature:
Impacts on Global Ecosystems
and Life
Author by
Hubert Engelbrecht
BENTHAM SCIENCE PUBLISHERS LTD.
End User License Agreement (for non-institutional, personal use)
This is an agreement between you and Bentham Science Publishers Ltd. Please read this License Agreement carefully before using the ebook/echapter/ejournal (“Work”). Your use of the Work constitutes your agreement to the terms and conditions set forth in this License Agreement. If you do not agree to these terms and conditions then you should not use the Work.
Bentham Science Publishers agrees to grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable limited license to use the Work subject to and in accordance with the following terms and conditions. This License Agreement is for non-library, personal use only. For a library / institutional / multi user license in respect of the Work, please contact: [email protected].
Usage Rules:
All rights reserved: The Work is the subject of copyright and Bentham Science Publishers either owns the Work (and the copyright in it) or is licensed to distribute the Work. You shall not copy, reproduce, modify, remove, delete, augment, add to, publish, transmit, sell, resell, create derivative works from, or in any way exploit the Work or make the Work available for others to do any of the same, in any form or by any means, in whole or in part, in each case without the prior written permission of Bentham Science Publishers, unless stated otherwise in this License Agreement.You may download a copy of the Work on one occasion to one personal computer (including tablet, laptop, desktop, or other such devices). You may make one back-up copy of the Work to avoid losing it. The following DRM (Digital Rights Management) policy may also be applicable to the Work at Bentham Science Publishers’ election, acting in its sole discretion:25 ‘copy’ commands can be executed every 7 days in respect of the Work. The text selected for copying cannot extend to more than a single page. Each time a text ‘copy’ command is executed, irrespective of whether the text selection is made from within one page or from separate pages, it will be considered as a separate / individual ‘copy’ command.25 pages only from the Work can be printed every 7 days.3. The unauthorised use or distribution of copyrighted or other proprietary content is illegal and could subject you to liability for substantial money damages. You will be liable for any damage resulting from your misuse of the Work or any violation of this License Agreement, including any infringement by you of copyrights or proprietary rights.
Disclaimer:
Bentham Science Publishers does not guarantee that the information in the Work is error-free, or warrant that it will meet your requirements or that access to the Work will be uninterrupted or error-free. The Work is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied or statutory, including, without limitation, implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk as to the results and performance of the Work is assumed by you. No responsibility is assumed by Bentham Science Publishers, its staff, editors and/or authors for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products instruction, advertisements or ideas contained in the Work.
Limitation of Liability:
In no event will Bentham Science Publishers, its staff, editors and/or authors, be liable for any damages, including, without limitation, special, incidental and/or consequential damages and/or damages for lost data and/or profits arising out of (whether directly or indirectly) the use or inability to use the Work. The entire liability of Bentham Science Publishers shall be limited to the amount actually paid by you for the Work.
General:
Any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with this License Agreement or the Work (including non-contractual disputes or claims) will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the U.A.E. as applied in the Emirate of Dubai. Each party agrees that the courts of the Emirate of Dubai shall have exclusive jurisdiction to settle any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with this License Agreement or the Work (including non-contractual disputes or claims).Your rights under this License Agreement will automatically terminate without notice and without the need for a court order if at any point you breach any terms of this License Agreement. In no event will any delay or failure by Bentham Science Publishers in enforcing your compliance with this License Agreement constitute a waiver of any of its rights.You acknowledge that you have read this License Agreement, and agree to be bound by its terms and conditions. To the extent that any other terms and conditions presented on any website of Bentham Science Publishers conflict with, or are inconsistent with, the terms and conditions set out in this License Agreement, you acknowledge that the terms and conditions set out in this License Agreement shall prevail.Bentham Science Publishers Ltd. Executive Suite Y - 2 PO Box 7917, Saif Zone Sharjah, U.A.E. Email: [email protected]
FOREWORD
This is a very ambitious book. The author, Hubert Engelbrecht takes a holistic view on geology, minerals extraction, and the hugely interlinked webs of civilizational use of the resources. He looks into the processes and consequences of 250 years of industrialization for minerals, ecosystems and life. This concentrated synopsis, which attempts to consider all kinds of interactions between humans and nature, opens the eyes for the enormous sizes and momenta of transformations generated.
The author chooses to introduce his subject by describing how natural cycles of matter and energy were modulated by geological and extra-terrestrial processes as well as by evolving life. He distinguishes two kinds of life, one evolving seemingly in a deterministic manner and generating the oxygenated atmosphere; and the other culminating, in a non-deterministic manner, in intelligent organisms capable of escaping from the constraints of photosynthetic energy: the miracle of the emergence of humankind creating innumerable artificial niches in the technosphere.
After a short history of industrialization, the author brings the reader down to the basics: how core and lifeblood of industry work and how its output grew with time: mining, processing and further refinement of immense amounts of mineral commodities, used to meet the demands of 7.5 billion humans.
But nothing came without side-effects. Extraction and processing of minerals and the industrial use of biological resources caused multiple and serious environmental impacts - e.g. atmospheric warming, acidification of oceans, eutrophication of lakes, pollution, deforestation, and an accelerated loss of biodiversity. In a subchapter on atmospheric turnovers, natural and artificial processes are compared.
For a strategic approach to reduce unwanted damage, the author observes the gap between the amount of resources extracted and processed and the amounts safely discarded or recycled. It is the large number of open loops that impair our ecosystems and indeed our health.
The author finishes with listing up decisive reasons, which caused the actual ecological crisis and mentions ideologies, economic systems as well as innate and learned behavior of humans. This book is recommended for reading for students and professionals of engineering, chiefly mining and civil engineering, of business economics, and indeed of political sciences and humanities.
PREFACE
The purpose of this book is to make public discussions on the part of the extractive industries' play: they are primary economic drivers and carry a considerable part of responsibility to promote sustainable practices and environmental protection, as well as controlling speed and direction of the transformations. Their products are indispensable for the economy and they provide positive contributions - creation, knowledge, culture, and life, - but also risk, conflict, hazard and destruction. The current, irreversible transformations on planetary scale are part of the most complex, singular and enormous experiment ever conducted. This book offers a responsible, generalist view on rising global ecological problems caused by transformations resulting from long-term industrial extraction of mineral raw materials, their manifold utilizations, and rising number of individuals consuming them in ever increasing amounts. Climate change is only one problem among many that were caused by significant alterations of natural cycles, especially the carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles. Other problems, all characterized by violations of precaution, prudence, mindfulness and restraint, are unpredictable in the long-term. The unexpected side-effects, developmental speeds, trends, and extents of these problems are our moral responsibility to solve, though some may be irreversible. Many improvements were made during industrialization. But a grave cultural crisis arouse at the same time. Because it is unreasonable, insensitive, and at high risk, to cut and interfere on huge economic scale into a natural system: merely a few hundred years of techno-scientifical development cannot have resulted in sufficient knowledge of that system, which evolved and diversified infinitely in a time-abyss of ca. 4.5 Ga. Mankind overstrained itself by economizing the best from ingenious human brains (inventions, ideas) and from the earth (mineral commodities), resulting in incipient loss of control. It is unwise to damage ecosystems, which prospered on a planet orbiting in one of the very rare habitable zones in space. Engineering assessment and advice from the human and ecological disciplines should be better included, because the fire of Prometheus entailed the serious consequence of the opening of Pandora's Box. This study intends to connect, as postulated by physicist H.-P. Dürr, profound expert knowledge with the broad and deep ranges of environmental geology and ecology, which are constituents of the science of consumption, conversion, and transformation of nature by humans. This interdisciplinary approach, which attempts to fully describe the complex human transformation of nature, occurred mentally from outside: i.e. virtually from space onto the globe, in order to obtain a general view on all areas affected by industrial development and to realistically represent magnitude, speed and momentum of the resulting changes.
Anthology of Important Mottos, Statements, and Stimuli
Immanuel Kant: Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction.
Fjodor Dostojewskij: Each one is responsible for all exclusively.
Viktor Frankl: Being a human means self-knowledge and responsibility.
Lao Te: You are responsible for Your concerns and for Your omissions.
Arthur Schopenhauer: We are responsible-le for our actions and for all what we tolerate without contradiction.
Leon Trotzkij: Responsibility originates by contradicting not punctually.
White Rose: Each person is responsible for all what it tolerates.
Albert Einstein: Problems never can be solved by persisting in the same mentality, which caused their origination.
J. Robert Oppenheimer: We knew that the world would not be the same.
Odo Marquard: It is a rational position to avoid the state of emergency.
Friedrich Dürrenmatt: The world resembles a petrol station without ban on smoking.
Philippus T. Paracelsus: Quantum facit velenum.
Karl R. Popper: Our mental view on future time must be: we are now responsible for that, what will occur in future.
Marquise de Pompadour: Aprés nous, le dèluge.
Georg C. Lichtenberg: Living together is a combination of boundless unconcern and the same pharisaism.
Demosthenes: Wells run dry, if too often and too much water is abstracted.
Ernest H. Shackleton: Difficulties are just things to overcome after all.
Rachel Carson: I am afraid it is true that, since to beginning of time, man has been a mostly untidy animal.
Georgius Agricola: ...there is a greater detriment from mining than the values of the metals … produced.
Albert Schweitzer: We have invented many things … we live in a frightening age.
Grace M. Hopper: Humans are allergic to change.
Heraclitus of Ephesus: No person steps into the same stream twice.
Isaak Newton: Actio est reactio.
Aristoteles: There are so many utility goods and luxury I don't need.
Imre Kertész: Life is a piece of art: it must be carefully developed. ….getting completely absorbed into and assimilated by the system in order to lose personality and self.
Francisco J. de Goya y Lucientes: Absence of common sense generates monsters.
Friedrich Hölderlin: But where hazard threatens, rescue also grows.
Elias Canetti: Organizations specialized in growth, multiplication and production are the most successful and most momentous structures ever created…; … excessive production began to suppress other sectors of life.
Fritz Schumacher: Small is beautiful.
Theodor W. Adorno: Industries' global interactions with humans are restricted to their properties as customer and employee.
Bernd Guggenberger: The vanishing of reality.
Eugene F. Kranz: Failure is not an option.
Alexander Gerst: We have only one earth.
Jane Goodall: Reasons for hope.
Dedicated to PhysicistEgmont Rupprecht(20/01/1957-13/08/1982)
Part I
Ecosystem Transformations - Natural and Anthropogenic Forcings
Hubert EngelbrechtAbstract
The evolution of ecosystems and life embedded in the spheres of Earth, as well as the theoretical background - entropic dissipation of energy and matter causing rising complexity - is outlined. This is followed by a description of how natural - terrestrial and extra-terrestrial - forcings (e.g. discrete volcanic eruptions, large igneous provinces, silicate weathering, continental drift, albedo, bioevolution; Milankovitch cycles, solar irradiance, galactic tides, impactors, gamma ray bursts) changed the ecosystems in the geological past and how life adapted to and transformed these ecosystems. Examples for the latter case are the Precambrian Great Oxygenation Event, the colonization of continents by plants since the Silurian and the spread of mammals since the early Tertiary. Brain growth, the invention of tools, the controlled use of fire, cooking, and creative organization of niches enabled hominines to escape natural habitats to innumerable artificial habitats. The didactic value of fossilized remnants of geological climate indicators and of ecosystem changes (preserved in geotopes) is emphasized.
Since ca. 4.4 Ga, geological processes have resulted in diverse spheres [1] - e.g. the hydro- and lithospheres and separate spatialities like oceans and continents forming the earth's surface. Of these the oceans were probably the first colonized by life since ca. 4.1 Ga ago [2]. Whether the origin of life, in the form of the Last Common Universal Ancestral Cell from inorganic molecules, occurred by chemoevolution in Darwin's warm little pond; in fissure brines present in the deep subsurface; in a hot “primordial soup” (Oparin); or in a gas mixture (Miller & Urey) stimulated by intense UV-radiation from the young sun, by electric energy from lightning, or by redox-reactions on the surfaces of Fe- and Zn-sulphides transferring energy to synthesize organic molecules in hot aquatic environment; or whether life was imported by deorbiting extra-terrestrial bodies containing organic molecules [3], cannot be precisely answered at present [4-7]. One type of
early ecosystem1 began to develop via catalytic organic synthesis probably at alkaline hydrothermal vent systems in anoxic Hadean oceans [8].
It is a hallmark of Earth history that geological processes, extra-terrestrial factors and events, as well as evolving life itself, endlessly modified or even destroyed ecosystems (see below). The lithified relics of the matter processed, converted and cycled through these ecosystems are present in km-thick piles of sediment, which are sub-dividable into geological formations2. These products filled sedimentary basins, which were integrated via subsidence and subduction into the geological cycle. Later on, due to tectonic forces, they were exhumed and exposed in metamorphosed and deformed states in mountain belts of the earth's surface [9]. Geophysical, palaeontological, sedimentological, stratigraphical, geochrono-logical, geochemical, and mineralogical analytics of these formations often result in rather precise reconstructions of changing ecosystems (palaeoecology, palaeoclimatology) as well as the distribution of oceans and continents (paleogeography) [9, 10].
Natural changes in ecosystems depend, beside the geological processes described above, primarily on the energy fluxes on and above the earth's surface, which is controlled by global solar irradiance, by scattered and reflected terrestrial infrared irradiation, as well as by the heat and matter transfer between the earth's surface, oceans' interiors and the atmosphere [11]. The absorbed and transferred heat circulating in the ecosystems embedded in the spheres of Earth depends predominantly on the efficacy of the planetary albedo and the varying quantities of greenhouse gases and aerosols present in the atmosphere [11, 12].
Matter and energy, circulating in the earth's spheres since ca. 4.5 Ga ago [9] irreversibly dissipate3 according to the theory of synergetic self-organisation4, which is controlled by entropy-transfer and the maximum entropy producing principle [13-15] in open systems. The asymmetry of time5 and the directedness/irreversibility of evolution are founded in the second law of thermodynamics and in the fact that entropy from physical and chemical processes increases with time [16]. Evolution is interwoven into that directed process, which even more efficiently dissipates energy and matter by generating self-organized structures that evolve into more and more complexity [17].
Species, which, since 4.0-4.1 Ga ago [2], have been subjected to casual mutation and natural selection, attempt to survive via competition, niche construction, innovation, creative adaptation, cooperation [18], and symbiosis. These activities, as well as the necessities to cope with resource limitations and to maintain vital functions by finding and metabolizing food and energy-carriers, caused deterministic transformations of the ecosystems they live in [9]. The most important instances of bioevolutionary ecosystem transformations are the Great Oxygenation Event, the Cambrian Radiation, the Silurian colonization of land by primitive plants, the radiation and spread of flowering plants in the Cretaceous, and the mammals domination since the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary [9, 19]; see below. Hominines diverged from apes 5-7 Ma ago and diversified into several lineages [20]. Reorganization, expansion of neocortex and frontal lobe, improvement of interconnectedness of neuronal networks, and adaptive change in shape of the hominine brain since ca. 1.9 Ma ago enabled Homo habilis and its phylogenetic successors - the population of Homo sapiens diverged probably between 350,000 and 260,000 a [21] - to intelligently improve advanced cognitive and physical functions and skills: e.g. articulating, planning, communicating, social cooperation, problem solving. In consequence, it willingly (indeterministically) escaped the limitations of its natural habitats via inventing tools, hunting, controlled use of fire, practicing agriculture, deforestation, cooking, producing higher nutrition food, applying artificial selection (breeding, domestication), and practicing arts [22-24]. As consequence, atmospheric levels of CO2, N2O and CH4 began to rise since the middle Holocene [25]. Several severe late and latest Holocene epi- and pandemics effected synchronous atmospheric cooling, because forests regrowing on plague-abandoned farms assimilated tens of GT of atmospheric CO2 [25]. According to Malthusian-Darwinian dynamics [26], the cultural developments - farming, trade, transportation, technology, and science - of modern man led to the emergence, construction, and maintenance of innumerable niches and domesticated ecosystems [27, 28], as well as in the provocation of innumerable bioevolutionary reactions [29-32]. Since 1971, genetic engineering has opened new fields in artificial selection, as well as experimental evolution [33]. Creation of huge geomorphic transformations [34] profoundly and irreversibly modified many ecosystems. Reliable reconstructions of the geogenic carbon-release rates during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum6 56 Ma ago indicate that even during that extreme period, the 2014 input rate of anthropogenic carbon into the atmosphere has no geological analogue and must be seen as unprecedented and unparalleled during the last 66 Ma [35].
The above mentioned anthropogenic impacts occur in addition to variations in and turnovers of ecosystems brought about by natural events and processes; see above [3, 36]. In the following, it is necessary to detail the types of natural events and processes that modulate ecosystems, because 1) the impacts of a few of them can be seen as proxies and analogues to some anthropogenic effects on ecosystems, and 2) the information preserved in fossilized deposits can be deciphered by means of chemical and physical analytical methods and inform us about the causes and effects of ecosystem transformations and highlight the procedures and durations of biotic responses, i.e. the processes of adapting to and recovering from ecosystem transformations. This knowledge enables us to better determine the intensities and reaches, and to more reliably predict, the effects of anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems [37]. Recognitions from palaeobiological responses analyzed from fossilized ecosystem turnovers is recommended to be applied as guiding principles in actual conservation biology paradigms to foster biodiversity and its resilience to rising anthropogenic pressure [38].
Among the first to identify fossil climate indicators - e.g. halite, redbeds, ventifacts, loess, tillites, striated pebbles, coal - and to have attempted to reconstruct the development of the corresponding palaeoecosystems in the geological past, were the meteorologists Wladimir Köppen and Alfred Wegener [39].
Volcanic eruptions: Ashes, gases and aerosols ejected into the stratosphere by brief eruptions decrease atmospheric transparency and increase the albedo effect. Depending on residence time and the amount of the suspended particulate matter and secondary aerosols (e.g. sulphuric acid aerosols formed from SO2), brief atmospheric cooling will result [40]. Emitted volcanic gases like H2O, CO2, H2S, CO, etc., however, contribute to the natural greenhouse effect and HCl and HF decompose the ozone layer [41, 42]. Examples of major eruptions that occurred in historic time are Santorin (1650 BC), Krakatoa (535 AD, 1883 AD), Laki (1783-1784 AD), Tambora (1815 AD), Mt. St. Helens (1980 AD), Pinatubo (1991 AD), and Eyjafjallajökull (1821-1823 AD, 2010 AD). The largest volcanic eruptions caused severe global economic stress, migrations of people, sociocultural problems, famines, plagues, and even extinctions, e.g. the demise of the Minoan culture and the Sasanian and East Turkish Empires [43-47]. It took about 70 years for the scientific community to realize that the Year Without a Summer, 1816, was caused by a volcanic super eruption and to begin to understand the global impacts of such events [48].
Rapid effusion of very large volumes of volcanics (>> 0.1 Mkm3 within 1-5 Ma) [49], as occurs with the origination of large marine and terrestrial igneous provinces [50], changes the physicochemical state of the hydro-, cryo-, pedo-, and atmospheres substantially on global scale. Large quantities of volcanic gases are also emitted, which cause a shift towards warm-humid climate; ocean-acidification, warming, eutrophication, and deoxygenation; diminution of the equator-pole temperature gradient, more pronounced ocean water stratification; melting of polar ice caps; sea level rise; possible dissociation of submarine CH4- and CO2 clathrates; and sometimes selective mass extinctions of species [51-53]. Examples of large igneous provinces are the Siberian flood basalts (252 Ma ago) and eruptions shortly afterwards [54], the Central Atlantic (Newark) rift basalt effusions (202-199 Ma ago), formation of the Shatzky Rise (147 Ma ago), Parana-Etendeka (132-130 Ma ago) Traps, the Karoo Traps (180 Ma ago), the mid-Cretaceous Manihiki (123 Ma ago), Ontong-Java (122 Ma ago, 90 Ma ago), and Kerguelen (110 Ma ago) events, as well as the Deccan Traps (66 Ma ago) and Afar event (31-29 Ma ago). These are often linked to contemporaneous ecosystem-turnovers, e.g. the demise of reef systems and carbonate platforms [55, 56], as well as oceanic anoxic events, the latter originating as a consequence of intensified near-surface bioproductivity and its degradation products, which cause deoxygenation in deeper water layers and the deposition of sapropelites, in which CH4 and H2S originate at concentrations above tipping points [53]. The volatile emissions of the Siberian flood basalts, estimated at ca. 170 teratonnes within 60,000 a, caused the extinction of 80-90% of terrestrial and marine species [55, 57, 58]. Rapid injections of vast amounts of CO2 and SO2 into the atmosphere caused major biotic catastrophes [59].
Silicate weathering: Chemical decomposition of large volumes of flood basalts and traps, exposed in the tropics, effectively absorbs atmospheric CO2 and diminishes the natural greenhouse effect7 [60]. This also applies to subaerially exposed continental terrain in general [61-64]. Silicate weathering of the low latitude landmasses of the supercontinent Rodinia contributed to the origination of several late Proterozoic glaciations (850-635 Ma ago) [65].
Continental drift/plate tectonics: landmasses at high latitudes are affected by cooling of their surfaces and subsequent glaciation, which can reinforce itself by the snow albedo effect, if enough moisture is transported poleward by marine and atmospheric circulations [12]. Such an arrangement enhanced icehouse conditions during the late Ordovician to early Silurian (the Andean-Saharan glaciation 450-420 Ma ago), late Devonian to late Permian (the Karoo glaciation 360-260 Ma ago) and the Quarternary glaciation (2.58-0.01 Ma ago) [9].
Planetary albedo: The diminished albedo of subaerially exposed, deglaciated land contributes to climate warming: Models of the middle Pliocene global warming suggest that it resulted from the considerably reduced extent of high-latitude terrestrial ice sheets and sea ice cover, which increased the heat-uptake through absorption of solar irradiation [66].
Bioevolution: In the beginning, significant palaeobiological evolutionary steps consisted in the development from fermentation below the Pasteur-point8 to aerobic metabolism, improving the effectiveness of the transfer of chemical energy in organisms by ca. 18 times and completion of the evolution from procaryota via endosymbiosis to eucaryota ca. 3.2 Ga ago [67-69]. Unicellular life consists of functional subunits like nuclei, vacuoles, chloroplasts (containing chlorophyll9), and mitochondria, as well as other components, enabling these phytogenic cells, via oxygenic photosynthesis, to assimilate CO2 by forming carbonates, carbohydrates, lipids, sterines, saccharines, etc., as well as free O2 [67].
Since ca. 3.7 - 2.7 Ga ago, palaeobiological events - e.g. the development of mats of photosynthesizing cyanophyceae in littoral zones - affected global oxygenation substantially [70, 71]. Subsequent to the oxygenation of the upper layers of the ocean 2.3 Ga ago, O2 began to accumulate in the atmosphere and the ozone layer began to form [53, 72]. The resulting Great Oxygenation Event consisted in an inversion of the volume-relations of the gas-constituents of the atmosphere and in a fundamental modification of the carbon-cycle: O2 - a trace gas constituent (0.0001-0.001%) of the Archaean (4.0-2.5 Ga ago) atmosphere - evolved to a main constituent of the Proterozoic (2.5-0.545 Ga ago) atmosphere [73]. CO2 underwent reverse development, whereby many PT of assimilated carbon as integrated via sedimentation into the geological cycle, being transformed and buried for millions of years in the lithosphere in form of limestone, dolostone, marlstone, coal, tar and hydrocarbons10. Consumption of methane - one of the main constituents of the Archaean atmosphere - was brought about by bacterial metabolism [74]. The substantial diminution of atmospheric CO2 and CH4 caused a decrease in the greenhouse effect, compensating for the modest irradiation arriving from the early, relatively faint sun, which was responsible for a cool climate that hosted several Precambrian and early Palaeozoic glaciation events [12] that temporarily diminished the progress of bioevolution.
Free oxygen proliferated beginning ca. 1.1 Ga the chain of respiration in animal unicellulars, in which important carriers of chemical energy via oxidative phosphorylation are formed to spur metabolism11. During the development of multicellular life (ca. 0.8-0.6 Ga ago) and more highly evolved aerobes, physiological transport of oxygen was made possible by the protein haemoglobin [9, 67, 75]. Carnivory has been linked to higher levels of oxygenation in the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and deep marine waters, and is supposed to have originated in the late Ediacaran (580-540 Ma ago); the evolution of sense organs is also discussed in this context [76].
Colonized since ca. 3.5 Ga ago by microbial communities [68], terrestrial environments were invaded ca. 465 Ma ago by flora species (algae, lichens, and bryo-, psilo-, lycopodo-, and pteridophyta of the Palaeophyticum) [77]. This important palaeobiological evolutionary step fostered atmospheric CO2 consumption via photosynthesis, resulting in maximum atmospheric O2 (ca. 35% by volume) in the latest Carboniferous and the formation of coal, while the drop in atmospheric CO2 was enhanced by Ca-Mg silicate weathering, induced by therhizomes of vascular plants; both effects contributed to the Karoo glaciations [9, 78].
Adaptation to declining atmospheric CO2 concentration - e.g. the development of megaphyll leaves and C4-photosynthesis - during the Cretaceous caused the radiation and taxonomic diversification of angiosperms, as well as their competitive replacement of gymnosperms and pteridophytes [19].
During early Tertiary, mammals radiatively adapted to environmental habitats previously occupied by predatory dinosaurs and large reptiles. Further diversification, migration, exchange, and dispersion, but also selective extinctions, occurred in middle and late Tertiary due to climatic cooling, sea level drop, origination of land- and filter bridges, reduced moisture, as well as changed food availability [9, 79, 80].
Orbital forcing: During the Cenozoic era, periodic variations in the spatial and temporal amount of solar irradiation arriving at the earth's surface occur in cycles of ca. 100 ka, 40 ka and 22 ka. These are controlled by eccentricity of the earth's orbit, obliquity of the ecliptic, as well as nutation of the rotational axis (Milankovitch 1930 in [12]). The superpositioning of these cycles causes e.g. the division of ice ages into stages - glacials and interglacials - and monsoon variations. As a result, cyclostratigraphic sedimentary deposits accumulated in the sinks of ecosystems exposed to orbital forcings [81].
Repetitive patterns of sedimentation have been recognized e.g. in the epicontinental Vocontian Basin (NW Tethyan margin) of the earliest Cretaceous [82], in the lacustrine environment of the Germanic Triassic [83], in the carbonate shelf environment of latest Permian [84], and in Mesoproterozoic back-arc basin deposits [85].
A critical functional relationship between the orbitally controlled intensity of boreal summer insolation and global atmospheric CO2-concentration explains the onset of the eight Quaternary glacial-interglacial cycles [86].
Extra-terrestrial forcing: Solar forcing of a few minor, but rapid, changes, as well as high-frequency oscillations of the Holocene palaeoclimate are recorded in isotopic signatures (variations of 14C, 10Be) measured in ice-cores and lake sediments [87-89], which indicate variations of intensity of solar irradiance, as well as the influence of the solar cycle on sedimentation. Detection and attribution of solar forced climate change in the 20th century is, however, complicated by similarity and degeneracy of signal-patterns from anthropogenic greenhouse gases and from solar irradiance [90].
The effects of comet and asteroid impacts on the transformation of ecosystems depend on their mass, heat content, chemical composition, transferred kinetic energy, and the geochemical composition of the target area [9]. Major extinctions, first order unconformities, and stratigraphic turnovers characterizing e.g. the early Carnian, Triassic-Jurassic and Cretaceous-Tertiary boundaries are most probably influenced by the effects of Saint Martin (220 ± 32 Ma ago), Rochecouart (201 ± 2 Ma ago) - and Chicxulub 65 Ma ago) - astroblemes [91, 92]. Formation of astroblemes on planet Earth by bodies deorbiting the scattered disc, the Kuiper-belt, or the Oort-Cloud at and beyond the periphery of the solar system may consist of at least three different processes: - Periodic cratering, where galactic tidal forces move objects from their orbits and shift them to the inner solar system [93]; - the solar system orbiting within 250 Ma the galactic centre and oscillates in a period of 35 Ma up and down the galaxy's plane, which probably consists of a dark matter disc capable of gravitationally perturbing objects [94]; - random cratering, which may be caused by transient gravitational waves that exert weak gravitational wave strain on objects, destabilizing their orbits at the periphery of solar system [95].
Some major palaeoecosystem changes and turnovers associated with diversification and selective mass extinctions, like the Cambrian Radiation, Kellwasser crisis, and Hangenberg event have been described in Earth history but lacked clear explanations, because several factors probably interacted in a complex manner to cause them [96-98]. Alternatively, an intragalactic, large, and long lasting gamma ray burst with a source-distance < 5000 light years may have hit planet Earth with ca. 90% probability and affected one of the major extinction events of yet unknown cause, like the terminal Ordovician crisis [99].
It is supposed that the Cambrian Radiation was probably linked to the crossing of a threshold value of bioavailable oxygen and to behavioral innovations (onset of ecosystem engineering, e.g. increase of bioturbation intensity) and evolution of sense organs [76, 100].
Detailed analysis of the last deglaciation, which started ca. 19 ka ago, found it was initiated by orbital forcing, causing warming of the Arctic area. Mixing of huge amounts of melt water with saline boreal water decelerated sinking of cold North Atlantic Deep Water and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation system, driven by thermohaline density gradients, slowed down. This caused warming of the deep waters of the southern hemisphere oceans. Because less CO2 is soluble in warmer seawater, a surplus of CO2 degassed and accumulated, with a delay of ca. 800-1000 a, in the atmosphere and contributed to later global greenhouse warming characterizing the postglacial era [101-103]. Late glacial (ca. 12,000 an ago) dissociation of gas hydrates present in high latitude hydrocarbon provinces and subsequent release of CH4 into the atmosphere contributed to warming [104].
ENSO12-related short term displacements of the inner tropical convergence zone during the latest Holocene caused alternation of the hydrological cycle of the tropical rain belt. Multi-year (< 10 a) droughts in the Southern Caribbean and monsoon changes in Eastern Asia chronologically correspond to the demise and collapse of classic Mayan civilization and Tang dynasty between 750-910 AD [105, 106]. Recent ENSO-forced climate variations were identified in time series measurements (covering 65 a) from the Amazon Basin that was compiled from in situ river gauges and satellite-based gravimeters [107, 108].
