La famille de l'Homme

Young Earth & Moon A young Earth 650 million years after its molten birth has cooled enough for a solid crust to form and for gases--delivered by comets and internal outgassing--to have formed a primitive atmosphere thick with turbulent, roiling clouds. Under the shadow of its night side flashes of lightning and the ruddy glow of volcanoes and lava fields illuminate the clouds from beneath. The space around the Earth is highlighted by remnants of the nebula from which the Solar System was born. On the upper right is the Earth's young Moon with lava-filled scars still glowing hot from asteroid massive impacts. Walter Myers: http://www.arcadiastreet.com/cgvistas/earth/01_precambrian/earth_01_precambrian_1600.htm

Carboniferous riverbank. Ferns, seed ferns, and giant lycopods (primitive moss-like plants with long slender leaves) flourished during the Carboniferous period, from about 360 to 300 million years ago. Some lycopods, such as the arboreal genus Sigillaria illustrated here, grew as high as 130 feet. (100 feet is considered tall for a modern Maple tree). Other tree-like plants included many varieties of arborescent horsetail of the genus Calamites and genus Asterophyllites. While the first dinosaurs were not to appear for another 130 million years, the Carboniferous forests were home to a plethora of terrestrial animals, including many species of invertebrates and some of the first walking vertebrates, including amphibians resembling modern salamanders. It was the insects however, many of them giants, that dominated the landscape. There were dragonfly-like Meganeura with wingspans up to 30 inches, giant centipedes roamed the forest floor, and some scorpions were over 20 inches long. Walter Myers: http://www.arcadiastreet.com/cgvistas/earth/02_paleozoic/earth_02_paleozoic_6200.htm

Nos ancêtres ont été toutes sortes de mammifères et de reptiles terrestres, de poissons et d'animaux marins et au commencement, d'algues bleues et de bactéries... voilà pour nous réconcilier avec la Création tout entière, dont nous sommes parents! La vie d'un être humain avec ses multiples métamorphoses depuis la cellule initiale et l'embryon pisciforme, reproduit en raccourci cette évolution de millions d'années. Un arbre généalogique cosmique que j'avais offert, je m'en souviens, au peintre canadien Jean-Paul Riopelle, dans ma correspondance avec lui après la mémorable journée que nous avions passée ensemble au bord du Saint-Laurent, du côté de Kamouraska, à l'époque de la migration des oies des neiges ...

Pierre-Olivier Combelles

Oeuvre de Riopelle. Photo: Le Soleil, Jean-Marie Villeneuve. Source: http://www.lapresse.ca/le-soleil/arts/expositions/201409/25/01-4803687-les-migrations-du-bestiaire-riopelle-et-ses-animaux.php

La végétation au cours des temps géologiques

Dario De Franceschi
UMR 8569
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris

http://www.cnrs.fr/cw/dossiers/dosevol/decouv/articles/chap3/deFranceschi.html

P.S.: et amusez-vous en lisant les commentaires (85!) à l'article sommaire et plein d'erreurs du Figaro sur l'"ancêtre commun des mammifères" (ou plutôt un des ancêtres communs, car il y en a une infinité et de toutes sortes !):

http://www.lefigaro.fr/sciences/2013/02/08/01008-20130208ARTFIG00377-l-ancetre-commun-des-mammiferes-devoile.php

Walter Myers: Urban ruins with Grey Owls A light urban environment as it may appear after having been abandoned to the elements for a century or so. In the foreground is a pair of owls of the species Strix nebulosa, known as Great Grey Owls. Location North America 2120 A.D. http://www.arcadiastreet.com/cgvistas/earth/06_future/earth_06_future_1000.htm

Earth losing atmosphere to red giant Sun In about 12 billion years our Sun, now as a red giant, will continue to expand, eventually reaching the orbits of Mercury and Venus, consuming and vaporizing those planets down to their constituent elements." In this image the Sun's girth is approaching Earth and its enormous heat is driving away the Earth's atmosphere, boiling the oceans, and incinerating all organic matter. Walter Myers: http://www.arcadiastreet.com/cgvistas/earth/06_future/earth_06_future_6000.htm