Rosa Rubicondior: Refuting Creationism - How Earth Was Really Formed

Artistic illustration of the early formation phase of the solar system. At the time, the young sun (in the centre) was surrounded by a pro-planetary disc - a rotating collection of gas and dust.

No collision, no life: Earth probably needed supplies from space

According to creationists who treat the Bible as both science and history, the Earth was created ex nihilo as a small, flat world beneath a dome, sitting at the centre of the universe. This happened, they claim, when a male deity with magical powers spoke some special words – in a language no one else could have known, since no other sentient beings yet existed.

And all of this supposedly took place instantaneously, just 6,000 to 10,000 years ago.

Creationists also like to imagine that the Earth, and indeed the whole universe, was purpose-built and fine-tuned, with a grand plan designed so that they could live comfortably here and now.

The scientific reality, however, could not be more different.

Earth formed some 4 billion years ago, condensing out of an accretion disc around a young, second- or third-generation star – our Sun – amid the chaos of the early solar system. Planets jostled for stable orbits, minor planetoids collided or were absorbed, and gravity ruled everything.

Now, two scientists at the University of Bern have shown that the Earth which first emerged was dry, barren, and stripped of the essential building blocks of life. It was only thanks to a colossal chance collision with a wandering planetoid, rich in water and volatile elements such as hydrogen, carbon, and sulphur, that Earth acquired the raw ingredients for habitability. The debris from this impact later condensed to form the Moon, while the tilted axis of Earth’s rotation – which gives us our seasons – was another by-product of that chaotic event.

None of this was inevitable. It was the result of blind chance shaped only by natural forces such as gravity, directly refuting the creationist mantra that “order cannot come from chaos.” To insist it was all preordained as part of some cosmic plan to produce humans (and, more parochially, white Americans) is to deny the fragility of existence and the extraordinary good fortune of being alive now, able to appreciate the wonder of how it all came to be.

Atheists do not live for death; they live for life.

Creationist Myth vs Scientific Reality. Creationist Claim

Earth was created 6,000–10,000 years ago, fully formed and inhabited.
It exists as a flat disc beneath a solid dome, at the centre of the universe.
Everything was designed and fine-tuned with humans in mind.

Scientific Evidence

Radiometric dating of rocks and meteorites shows Earth is ~4.5 billion years old.
Astronomy demonstrates a heliocentric solar system within an ordinary galaxy.
Geological strata and fossil records document deep time and evolutionary change.
Early Earth was dry and volatile-poor; life’s ingredients were delivered by later collisions with outer solar system bodies.
The Moon’s composition and Earth’s axial tilt are consistent with a giant impact origin, not instant creation.

Conclusion: Far from being purpose-built, Earth and its habitability arose from chaotic processes governed only by physics and chance. The evidence overwhelmingly supports this naturalistic account, leaving no room for the simplistic myths of creationism.

The University of Bern research is published open access in Science Advances and summarised in a press release.

No collision, no life: Earth probably needed supplies from space
After the formation of the Solar System, it took a maximum of three million years for the chemical composition of the Earth's precursor to be completed. This is shown by a new study by the Institute of Geological Sciences at the University of Bern. At this time, however, there were hardly any elements necessary for life such as water or carbon compounds on the young planet. Only a later planetary collision probably brought water to Earth, paving the way for life.
Earth is so far the only known planet on which life exists – with liquid water and a stable atmosphere. However, the conditions were not conducive to life when it formed. The gas-dust cloud from which all the planets in the Solar System formed was rich in volatile elements essential for life, such as hydrogen, carbon and sulphur. However, in the inner Solar System – the part closest to the Sun, where the four rocky planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars and the asteroid belt are located today – these volatile elements could hardly exist: Due to the high temperature of the Sun, they did not condense and initially remained largely in the gas phase. As these gaseous substances were not incorporated into the solid rocky materials from which the planets were formed, the early precursor of the Earth, the so-called proto-Earth, also contained very little of these vital substances. Only celestial bodies that formed further away from the Sun in cooler regions were able to incorporate these components. When and how the Earth became a life-friendly planet is still not fully understood.

In a new study, researchers from the Institute of Geological Sciences at the University of Bern have now been able to show for the first time that the chemical composition of the early Earth was complete no later than three million years after the formation of the Solar System – and in a way that initially made the emergence of life impossible. Their results, recently published in the journal Science Advances, suggest that life on Earth was only made possible by a later event. Dr. Pascal Kruttasch is first author of the study, which was part of his dissertation at the Institute of Geological Sciences and was financially supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Kruttasch is now an SNSF Postdoc.Mobility Fellow at Imperial College London.

Using a precise clock to measure the history of the Earth's formation

The research team used a combination of isotope and element data from meteorites and terrestrial rocks to reconstruct the process of the Earth's formation. Using model calculations, the researchers were able to narrow down in time how the chemical composition of the Earth developed in comparison to other planetary building blocks.

Kruttasch explains: "A high-precision time measurement system based on the radioactive decay of manganese-53 was used to determine the precise age. This isotope was present in the early Solar System and decayed to chromium-53 with a half-life of around 3.8 million years." This method allowed ages to be determined with an accuracy of less than one million years for materials that are several billion years old. "These measurements were only possible because the University of Bern has internationally recognized expertise and infrastructure for the analysis of extraterrestrial materials and is a leader in the field of isotope geochemistry," says co-author Klaus Mezger, Professor Emeritus of Geochemistry at the Institute of Geological Sciences at the University of Bern.

Life on Earth thanks to a cosmic coincidence?

Using model calculations, the research team was able to show that the chemical signature of the proto-Earth, i.e. the unique pattern of chemical substances of which it is composed, was already complete less than three million years after the formation of the Solar System. Their study thus provides empirical data on the time of formation of the original material of the young Earth.

Our Solar System formed around 4,568 million years ago. Considering that it only took up to 3 million years to determine the chemical properties of the Earth, this is surprisingly fast.

Pascal M. Kruttasch, first author.
Institut für Geologie
Universität Bern
Bern, Switzerland.

The results of the study thus support the assumption that a later collision with another planet – Theia – brought the decisive turning point and made the Earth a life-friendly planet. Theia probably formed further out in the Solar System, where volatile substances such as water accumulated.

Thanks to our results, we know that the proto-Earth was initially a dry rocky planet. It can therefore be assumed that it was only the collision with Theia that brought volatile elements to Earth and ultimately made life possible there.

Pascal M. Kruttasch.

Life-friendliness in the universe cannot be taken for granted

The new study contributes significantly to our understanding of the processes in the early phase of the Solar System and provides clues as to when and how planets on which life is possible can form.

The Earth does not owe its current life-friendliness to a continuous development, but probably to a chance event – the late impact of a foreign, water-rich body. This makes it clear that life-friendliness in the universe is anything but a matter of course.

Klaus Mezge, co-author.
Institut für Geologie
Universität Bern
Bern, Switzerland.

The next step would be to investigate the collision event between proto-Earth and Theia in more detail.

So far, this collision event is insufficiently understood. Models are needed that can fully explain not only the physical properties of the Earth and Moon, but also their chemical composition and isotope signatures.

Pascal M. Kruttasch.

Publication:
Pascal M. Kruttasch & Klaus Mezger
Time of proto-Earth reservoir formation and volatile element depletion from ⁵³Mn-⁵³Cr chronometry.
Sci. Adv. 11, eadw1280(2025).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adw1280

Abstract
The ⁵³Mn-⁵³Cr chronometry of Solar System materials constrains the early chemical evolution of the protoplanetary disk, which is critical for planet formation. Mn/Cr ratios in carbonaceous chondrites and the bulk silicate Earth indicate that meteorite parent bodies and Earth have variable depletions in volatile elements compared to the bulk Solar composition. This depletion is a consequence of the local temperature decreasing as a function of heliocentric distance before planetesimal accretion. Back-tracking the present-day ε⁵³Cr composition of the hypothetical proto-Earth fraction shows that the cessation of Mn-Cr fractionation from the bulk Solar composition occurred no later than ~3 Ma after CAI formation, similar to disk regions of carbonaceous chondrites at greater heliocentric distances. The timing of limited solid-gas interaction due to the dissipation of gas from the protoplanetary disk caused the cessation of Mn-Cr fractionation and provides a lower limit on its lifetime.

INTRODUCTION
Evaporation and condensation of solids in the protoplanetary disk are fundamental processes in the evolution of the Solar System that shaped the volatile element inventory of planetary building blocks. Volatility-controlled fractionation processes and their timescales in different regions of the protoplanetary disk are key to understanding the evolution of the protoplanetary disk and, ultimately, the formation of habitable planets, such as Earth. Evaporation and condensation are thought to have occurred throughout the protoplanetary disk stage from nebula gas until its dissipation by photo-evaporation, viscous accretion, and planetesimal formation [e.g., (1)]. Astronomical observations suggest that the dissipation of gas and the associated transition from protoplanetary to debris disks (through a transitional disk stage) occurs in the first ~3 to 5 million years (Ma) of a disk’s lifetime (2–4). However, less is known about the disk evolution of our Solar System and the formation of planetary reservoirs involving volatile element fractionation processes. The evolution of the short-lived ⁵³Mn-⁵³Cr system [t_1/2 = 3.80 ± 0.23 Ma (5)] in planetary materials provides precise age constraints for these processes. Manganese and Cr are moderately volatile elements with 50% condensation temperatures of \(\small\text{T}^{\text{Mn}}_{\text{c}}\) = 1123 K and \(\small\text{T}^{\text{Cr}}_{\text{c}}\) = 1291 K at 10⁻⁴ bar (6), which can result in relatively large Mn-Cr fractionation in different planetary building blocks. This makes the ⁵³Mn-⁵³Cr chronometer suitable for dating chemical differentiation in the cooling solar nebula gas (6, 7) and evaporation from silicate melt (8). In addition, Mn and Cr fractionate in silicate-metal melt systems as a function of S concentration due to their different chemical affinities [e.g., (9, 10)].

This study models the ε⁵³Cr evolution of the reservoirs of proto-Earth (PE) and carbonaceous chondrites (CCs) by tracing their present-day ε⁵³Cr backward through time to constrain the time of reservoir formation and volatile element fractionation events in the evolving protoplanetary disk. It is assumed that ⁵³Mn and ⁵³Cr were uniformly distributed at the beginning of Solar System formation (5, 11), and the initial ⁵⁵Mn/⁵²Cr ratio of the bulk Solar System (as represented by CI chondrite) was ⁵⁵Mn/⁵²Cr_CI = 0.84 (12). This resulted in a substantial ingrowth of ~0.5 ε⁵³Cr units in the first ~10 million years of the Solar System, which is much higher than the current analytical precision of typically less than 0.1 ε⁵³Cr (2SE). The present-day bulk silicate Earth (BSE) and CCs (except CI) have ε⁵³Cr compositions lower than CI [e.g., Δε⁵³Cr_BSE-CI = −0.24 ± 0.02 (12)]. This peculiarity indicates that Mn-Cr fractionation of these reservoirs occurred early from the bulk Solar composition, resulting in different pathways of ε⁵³Cr evolution through time. On the basis of the Mn/Cr ratio of today’s BSE (13), it is expected that the PE had a low Mn/Cr ratio compared to the bulk Solar System value as recorded in the Sun and CI chondrite (7). The generally lower abundances of volatile elements in the present-day BSE indicate that Earth, or its precursor materials, lost the major inventory of volatile elements early during their evolution [e.g., (14)]. Chondrites, which are mostly undifferentiated material from the early stages of the evolving Solar System and possibly the precursors of the terrestrial planets, exhibit different extents of volatile element depletion [e.g., (14, 15)]. A comparison of element and isotope abundances of the Earth with meteoritic materials indicates that Earth itself cannot be the product of a single meteorite group [e.g., (16)]. The distinct and variable element abundances of the present-day BSE (13) suggest that Earth consists of at least three chemically and isotopically distinct components. These components likely mixed during the Moon-forming impact, ≲70 Ma after the formation of the Solar System and thereafter (referred to as “late-veneer”) (17, 18). The completion of Earth’s core formation was contemporaneous with the Moon-forming impact [e.g., (19)]. Today’s element abundances of the BSE and isotope constraints strongly suggest that the bulk Earth comprises ~90% PE, ~10% Theia, and ~0.4% late veneer material, where Theia and the late veneer material had high volatile element contents approaching those of CI chondrite, while the PE was strongly depleted in volatile elements (14, 18, 20, 21). Other models suggest that Earth formed from ~60% PE and ~40% Theia [e.g., (22)], where Theia had a composition similar to enstatite chondrites (23–26), i.e., similar to PE.

To obtain age information on the time of Mn-Cr fractionation events, as recorded in the PE and CCs relative to the bulk Solar System, this study constrains (i) the bulk Solar System ⁵³Mn/⁵⁵Mn and ε⁵³Cr at any absolute time; (ii) the present-day ⁵⁵Mn/⁵²Cr and ε⁵³Cr of the hypothetical PE, proto-Earth mantle (PEM), and proto-Earth core (PEC); and (iii) traces back the ε⁵³Cr composition of the PE and CCs reservoirs through time. The time of PE reservoir formation is constrained assuming accretion of Earth building blocks via oligarchic growth of Moon- to Mars-sized planetary embryos (27) for three different mixing scenarios between PEM and Theia that result in the present-day ⁵⁵Mn/⁵²Cr and ε⁵³Cr of the BSE. Model I assumes that PEM and Theia had identical compositions (23–26, 28), thus independent of the relative mass fraction between PEM and Theia. Model II assumed that 90% of the material is PEM and 10% Theia (± 5%), where Theia is CI chondrite-like (18, 20, 21, 29, 30). Model III assumes that 60% of the material is PEM and 40% Theia (± 5%), with Theia being CI chondrite-like.

Pascal M. Kruttasch & Klaus Mezger
Time of proto-Earth reservoir formation and volatile element depletion from ⁵³Mn-⁵³Cr chronometry.
Sci. Adv. 11, eadw1280(2025).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adw1280

Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by American association for the Advancement of Science. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

The work from the University of Bern underscores just how precarious and contingent our existence really is. Far from being placed here with purpose, life on Earth owes its origins to violent impacts and random cosmic accidents, governed only by the blind laws of physics.

This reality is at once humbling and awe-inspiring. It reminds us that our planet’s life-friendly conditions are not the product of design, but of chance events that might easily have gone another way. Without that collision, Earth would have remained a barren rock, and there would have been no oceans, no atmosphere fit for life, no Moon to stabilise our climate, and certainly no humans to invent stories of divine creation.

When creationists insist that such outcomes must have been preordained, they miss the deeper wonder: that from chaos, order can and does emerge through natural processes alone. The cosmos needs no overseer to create beauty, complexity, and life; gravity, chemistry, and time suffice.

Recognising this does not diminish our place in the universe but enriches it. We are the fortunate beneficiaries of cosmic happenstance, alive in a fleeting moment on a fragile world. That awareness should inspire not only awe, but also a renewed sense of responsibility to cherish and protect the rare and remarkable planet we call home.

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