The Terraforming of Earth

rael-science
terraforming Terraforming de la Terre
     

    The Terraforming of Earth

    A Raelian Hypothesis

    Atmosphere, atmosphere, did you say atmosphere?

  • By Marcel Terrusse
  • Up until the mid-sixties the majority of geochemists considered the current atmosphere as the final product of the degassing of the chemical elements forming the Earth’s crust. They were convinced that reactions through non-biological processes had determined its current state.
     

    Oxygen, for instance, was merely supposed to be the product of the breakdown of water vapor molecules coupled with the release of hydrogen in the environment, resulting in an excess of free oxygen. It was thought that living beings simply “borrowed” gases from the atmosphere and returned them unmodified.

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  • COMPOSITION OF THE ATMOSPHERE

  • However, the atmosphere’s composition deviates considerably from the chemical equilibrium of the steady state. Almost everything seems to violate the rules of chemical equilibrium. In fact, the atmosphere’s composition is such a curious and incompatible mixture that it could not have formed or persisted by chance.

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  • The abundance of free oxygen on a planet determines the redox potential, which is a measure of the tendency of an environment to oxidize or to get reduced. In an oxidizing environment, a chemical element takes in oxygen. For instance, iron will rust as a result. Conversely, in a reducing, hydrogen-rich environment, an oxidized compound tends to get rid of its oxygen charge and rust will become iron again, to use the same example. The abundance of positively charged hydrogen atoms helps establish a balance between an acidic versus an alkaline environment or pH, to use chemists’ lingo. The redox potential and the pH level are two key environmental factors that determine whether or not a planet lends itself to life.

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  • The presence of free, gaseous oxygen in the atmosphere is an anomaly for chemists. Such a presence is not observed on any other planet. Oxygen is a highly reactive chemical element whose stable form is the one found in oxidized compounds such as water, carbon dioxide, carbonates, nitrates, sulfates, silicates, aluminates, metal oxides, etc. However, the amount of atmospheric oxygen is enormous: 200 grams per square centimeter of surface area, or 1,100 trillion tons in the Earth’s atmosphere.

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  • The only possible explanation that can be given to the highly unlikely composition of the atmosphere surrounding the Earth lies in the fact that this atmosphere is produced on its surface daily, and that the manufacturing agent is life itself. The significant reduction in entropy and the persistent state of disequilibrium found in atmospheric gases, are clear evidence of a biological activity.

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  • The dominant gas found in the air, not in terms of amount but from a chemical standpoint, is oxygen. It establishes the energy reference level for the entire planet. It is a tradition in chemistry to express the oxidative power of an environment in terms of redox potential, measured electrically and expressed in volts. It is actually nothing more than the voltage of a hypothetical battery that has one electrode immersed in oxygen and the other in the element being studied.

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  • Sources of high potential, whether chemical or electrical, are dangerous. It is so, particularly in the case of oxygen. Our current atmosphere, with its oxygen level at 21 percent, is at the acceptable upper limit for life to be sustainable. An increase in its concentration, however small, would significantly raise the risk of an explosion. In other words, the probability for a wildfire caused by lightning to occur increases by 70 percent each time the oxygen concentration increases by one percent from its current level.

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  • If the oxygen level were greater than 25 percent, even moist vegetation would burn once the combustion process would begin. A wildfire ignited by a spark, for instance, would burn uncontrollably until the entire combustible material is consumed.

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  • This limit represents the constraint. During the terraforming operation this constraint forced the Elohim to dilute the oxygen with an inert gas: nitrogen.

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  • All the oxygen produced from photosynthesis by green plants and algae circulates in the biosphere in a relatively short time. The overall amount of oxygen in the atmosphere is kept constant, thanks to a dynamic balance between a gain, which occurs when the oxygen is produced from photosynthetic mechanisms, and a loss, which occurs from oxidation into carbon dioxide during the respiration processes. In other words, the atmospheric oxygen is balanced between input from photosynthesis and output by respiration. This cycle describes the flow of oxygen but it can never lead to a net increase in the total amount that exists in the atmosphere.

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  • Which begs the question: “How did the oxygen accumulate in the atmosphere?”
    Until recently, it was believed that the main source of oxygen was the photolysis of water vapor, which occurs in the upper layers of the atmosphere. During this chemical process, water molecules split and hydrogen atoms are light enough to escape the Earth’s gravitational field, leaving the oxygen atoms free to bind in pairs to form oxygen molecules or in triplets to create ozone. It is clear that this process leads to an increase in oxygen, but this increase represents a negligible source of oxygen in the modern biosphere.

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  • There is little doubt that the main source of atmospheric oxygen is the one proposed by Rubey in 1951: the entrapment in sedimentary rocks of a portion of the carbon that is fixated by green plants and algae within the organic matter of their own tissues. According to him, plant debris swept away and transported from land surfaces toward the oceans, where they were buried with sediments, had to leave an additional oxygen molecule in the air for each carbon atom extracted from the cycle of photosynthesis and respiration. By expanding this line of reasoning we realize that the main cause was in fact a massive entrapment of organic materials through a deliberate multi-step action that occurred in the preliminary phases of the Earth’s layout to make it inhabitable.

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  • If we accept the idea that free oxygen is the result of biological activity, that is, one of the end products of photosynthesis, then the equivalent mass of carbohydrates (sugars, starch, cellulose and derivatives) corresponding to this oxygen production would be about a million billion tons!

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  • If these carbonated materials were evenly distributed across the entire surface of the planet they would represent a mass of 2.035 tons of carbohydrates per square meter, or of 3.052 tons of carbohydrates per square meter if they were distributed only in the subsurface of the emerged continents. The true value must lie in between these two figures since there are buried materials offshore on the continental plateau.

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  • Where do we find these carbonated materials?

    – in the biomass, that is, in a closed loop

    – buried in the form of fossil materials

    – mineralized in the form of carbonates

    The biomass that we can currently observe on the Earth’s surface, in the form of plants, trees, various animals, microorganisms dispersed in the soil etc., varies between 0 and 500 kg/m2 depending on the climatic zones.

    If we were to use the most conservative numbers for our calculation:

    – average theoretical mass of carbonates and organic carbon: 2000 kg/m2

    – observable biomass: 500 kg/m2

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  • The difference of 1500 kg/m2 represents the “invisible” mass buried in the form of coal, oil and natural gas, that is, approximately 0.7 million billion tons for the entire planet (but most of these reserves are in a diffuse state and are therefore not exploitable).

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  • The enormous amount of buried materials suggests that it is the result of several successive burials! If the average biomass is 500 kg/m2, the entrapment of 1500 kg/m2 must have happened in at least 5 or 6 successive stages! These entrapments correspond to the boundaries between geological eras and the extinction of most of the living species present at the time.

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  • For geologists who embrace the gradualist model (the one currently taught in universities), the entrapment of organic material is a continuous process. Year after year, the cycle of life causes some organic material to fall to the ground, turning into humus, and returning to the soil. However, this model is clearly incorrect. According to us, Raelians, the emerged continents have been in place for only a very short period (25000 years) and “catastrophic” flash events swept the planet several times (stages in the layout of the original continent, then more recently the “biblical flood”) burying superficial materials in the process. The Elohim, who master anti-gravitation technologies, have implemented these entrapments, which were steps in the terraforming process.

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    NITROGEN

  • Nitrogen is the most abundant chemical element in the atmosphere. It represents 78 percent of the air we breathe. The bonds that bring together two nitrogen atoms to form a molecule of nitrogen gas are among the strongest in chemistry, and consequently this gas turns out to be reluctant to react with anything at all. It accumulated in the atmosphere because of denitrifying bacteria and other processes inherent to living cells as well. It returns to its natural habitat, the ocean, only slowly through inorganic processes such as thunderstorms. Not many people are aware that nitrogen’s stable form is not nitrogen gas, but rather the nitrate ion dissolved in the ocean. If life vanished, most of the nitrogen in the air would eventually combine with oxygen and return to the ocean in nitrate form.

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  • What benefits does the biosphere gain from preserving the air saturated with gaseous nitrogen, well beyond what would seem logical from the viewpoint of the chemistry of equilibrium? There are several possible answers to this question. Firstly, a stable climate may require the current atmospheric density. In this case, nitrogen becomes a practical gas and generator of pressure. Secondly, a slow reacting gas like nitrogen is probably the best oxygen diluent in the air because, as previously mentioned, an atmosphere containing pure oxygen would be disastrous.

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    THE EARTH BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF THE ELOHIM

  • Twenty five thousand years ago, when the Elohim arrived, the Earth was evenly covered by an ocean and was surrounded by a thick layer of clouds moving in an atmosphere that was most likely very rich in carbon dioxide.

    There was no emerged continent from this ocean whose average depth must have revolved around 300 meters. Carbon dioxide being highly soluble, this ocean must have had a very acidic pH.

    There was no free oxygen or ozone layer in the air and consequently the surface of the continent that emerged from the Elohim’s intervention must have been directly exposed to UV radiation from the Sun.

    The earliest forms of life that the Elohim created had to be adapted to a hostile environment that was unsuitable for mammals and higher organisms.

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  • There is direct evidence for the existence of a complex and diversified biotope containing all the major ecological cycles prior to the appearance of free oxygen during the first geological period of the Paleozoic era (Cambrian). We can find traces of this biotope among the living organisms discovered around sulfurous hydrothermal vents. An entire batythermophilic fauna blossoms around these oases at 4000 to 5000 m deep on the ocean floor along the junction lines of the continental plates.

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  • Some of the first living beings have left tiny fossil remains called stromatolites. These are layered bio-sedimentary structures, often laminated and in the form of cones or cauliflowers. These structures are generally composed of calcium carbonate or silica and are now known to be produced by microbial activity. Some can be found in ancient rocks such as flint. Their general shape suggests that they were produced by photosynthetic organisms such as the current blue-green algae, which convert sunlight into potential chemical energy.

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  • Ultimately, the continuous activity of aerobic photo-synthesizers led to the gradual accumulation of oxygen in the air. The introduction of oxygen in an anaerobic environment must have amounted to an atmospheric ‘pollution’ accident of major proportions. One only has to imagine the effect that a marine alga successfully colonizing the sea and using sunlight to generate chlorine from chlorinated ions in ocean water would have on our current biosphere. The devastating effect of a chlorine-charged atmosphere on present-day life would be identical to the one the oxygen would have on anaerobic life when the first photo-synthesizers began to release oxygen.

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  • Whence the stages, each time forcing the development of a fauna and flora adapted to the environmental conditions of the time. Thus, this gives us a clue allowing to explain the reason for the different families of fossils that paleontologists dig up today.

    Moreover, oil and natural gas would originate from microorganisms developed in the first phase of the planet’s layout, whereas coal would come specifically from the subsequent phases where the atmosphere was sufficiently rich in oxygen to allow the development of ferns and all kinds of arboreal plant species.

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  • The mass of organic material developing on the soil’s surface being limited, the cumulative entrapments that we find today could only have been achieved in four, five, or even six stages!

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    IN SUMMARY

  • In the primary phase of the layout of the planet, the Elohim had to modify the atmosphere’s composition. They gradually increased oxygen levels by developing a vegetation cover that they buried massively several times.

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  • Between two interventions of planetary burying, on each of the “geological layers,” the Elohim developed a set of plant and animal species adapted to each of the oxygenation levels. Today, we are rediscovering these species as mineralized fossils. Coal, oil, and natural gas (and shale gas!) deposits are nothing more than traces of these successive entrapments. Another consequence addressed in other documents is the calling into question of the entire geological dating system. Stratigraphy, as well as radiological dating methods need to be challenged!

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  • The observation of our environment allows us to reconstruct the steps that took place in the laying out of the Earth and highlights the genius of our creators. It allows us to imagine the stages involved in terraforming, a process that we, humans, will replicate on other planets in a not-so-distant future…in the image of what the Elohim accomplished in ancient times.

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    Good meditation!

    Marcel Terrusse

    Note: This article was originally written in French. The original article is available here.