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The 5th Epochal Revelation
-The Urantia Papers
The 5th Epochal Revelation
Part III
The History of Urantia
PAPER 57
THE ORIGIN OF URANTIA
57:0.1
IN PRESENTING excerpts from the archives of Jerusem for
the records of Urantia respecting its antecedents and
early history, we are directed to reckon time in terms
of current usage -- the present leap-year calendar of
365¼ days to the year. As a rule, no attempt will be
made to give exact years, though they are of record. We
will use the nearest whole numbers as the better method
of presenting these historic facts.
57:0.2
When referring to an event as of one or two millions of
years ago, we intend to date such an occurrence back
that number of years from the early decades of the
twentieth century of the Christian era. We will thus
depict these far-distant events as occurring in even
periods of thousands, millions, and billions of years.
1. THE ANDRONOVER NEBULA
57:1.1
Urantia is of origin in your sun, and your sun is one of
the multifarious offspring of the Andronover nebula,
which was onetime organized as a component part of the
physical power and material matter of the local universe
of Nebadon. And this great nebula itself took origin in
the universal force-charge of space in the superuniverse
of Orvonton, long, long ago.
57:1.2
At the time of the beginning of this recital, the
Primary Master Force Organizers of Paradise had long
been in full control of the space-energies which were
later organized as the Andronover nebula.
57:1.3
987,000,000,000
years ago associate force organizer and then acting
inspector number 811,307 of the Orvonton series,
traveling out from Uversa, reported to the Ancients of
Days that space conditions were favorable for the
initiation of materialization phenomena in a certain
sector of the, then, easterly segment of Orvonton.
57:1.4
900,000,000,000
years ago the Uversa archives testify, there was
recorded a permit issued by the Uversa Council of
Equilibrium to the superuniverse government authorizing
the dispatch of a force organizer and staff to the
region previously designated by inspector number
811,307. The Orvonton authorities commissioned the
original discoverer of this potential universe to
execute the mandate of the Ancients of Days calling for
the organization of a new material creation.
57:1.5
The recording of this permit signifies that the force
organizer and staff had already departed from Uversa on
the long journey to that easterly space sector where
they were subsequently to engage in those protracted
activities which would terminate in the emergence of a
new physical creation in Orvonton.
57:1.6
875,000,000,000
years ago the enormous Andronover nebula number 876,926
was duly initiated. Only the presence of the force
organizer and the liaison staff was required to
inaugurate the energy whirl which eventually grew into
this vast cyclone of space. Subsequent to the initiation
of such nebular revolutions, the living force organizers
simply withdraw at right angles to the plane of the
revolutionary disk, and from that time forward, the
inherent qualities of energy insure the progressive and
orderly evolution of such a new physical system.
57:1.7
At about this time the narrative shifts to the
functioning of the personalities of the superuniverse.
In reality the story has its proper beginning at this
point -- at just about the time the Paradise force
organizers are preparing to withdraw, having made the
space-energy conditions ready for the action of the
power directors and physical controllers of the
superuniverse of Orvonton.
2. THE PRIMARY NEBULAR STAGE
57:2.1
All evolutionary material creations are born of circular
and gaseous nebulae, and all such primary nebulae are
circular throughout the early part of their gaseous
existence. As they grow older, they usually become
spiral, and when their function of sun formation has run
its course, they often terminate as clusters of stars or
as enormous suns surrounded by a varying number of
planets, satellites, and smaller groups of matter in
many ways resembling your own diminutive solar system.
57:2.2
800,000,000,000
years ago the Andronover creation was well established
as one of the magnificent primary nebulae of Orvonton.
As the astronomers of near-by universes looked out upon
this phenomenon of space, they saw very little to
attract their attention. Gravity estimates made in
adjacent creations indicated that space materializations
were taking place in the Andronover regions, but that
was all.
57:2.3
700,000,000,000
years ago the Andronover system was assuming gigantic
proportions, and additional physical controllers were
dispatched to nine surrounding material creations to
afford support and supply co-operation to the power
centers of this new material system which was so rapidly
evolving. At this distant date all of the material
bequeathed to the subsequent creations was held within
the confines of this gigantic space wheel, which
continued ever to whirl and, after reaching its maximum
of diameter, to whirl faster and faster as it continued
to condense and contract.
57:2.4
600,000,000,000
years ago the height of the Andronover
energy-mobilization period was attained; the nebula had
acquired its maximum of mass. At this time it was a
gigantic circular gas cloud in shape somewhat like a
flattened spheroid. This was the early period of
differential mass formation and varying revolutionary
velocity. Gravity and other influences were about to
begin their work of converting space gases into
organized matter.
3. THE SECONDARY NEBULAR STAGE
57:3.1
The enormous nebula now began gradually to assume the
spiral form and to become clearly visible to the
astronomers of even distant universes. This is the
natural history of most nebulae; before they begin to
throw off suns and start upon the work of universe
building, these secondary space nebulae are usually
observed as
spiral phenomena.
57:3.2
The near-by star students of that faraway era, as they
observed this metamorphosis of the Andronover nebula,
saw exactly what twentieth-century astronomers see when
they turn their telescopes spaceward and view the
present-age spiral nebulae of adjacent outer space.
57:3.3
About the time of the attainment of the maximum of mass,
the gravity control of the gaseous content commenced to
weaken, and there ensued the stage of gas escapement,
the gas streaming forth as two gigantic and distinct
arms, which took origin on opposite sides of the mother
mass. The rapid revolutions of this enormous central
core soon imparted a spiral appearance to these two
projecting gas streams. The cooling and subsequent
condensation of portions of these protruding arms
eventually produced their knotted appearance. These
denser portions were vast systems and subsystems of
physical matter whirling through space in the midst of
the gaseous cloud of the nebula while being held
securely within the gravity grasp of the mother wheel.
57:3.4
But the nebula had begun to contract, and the increase
in the rate of revolution further lessened gravity
control; and erelong, the outer gaseous regions began
actually to escape from the immediate embrace of the
nebular nucleus, passing out into space on circuits of
irregular outline, returning to the nuclear regions to
complete their circuits, and so on. But this was only a
temporary stage of nebular progression. The
ever-increasing rate of whirling was soon to throw
enormous suns off into space on independent circuits.
57:3.5
And this is what happened in Andronover ages upon ages
ago. The energy wheel grew and grew until it attained
its maximum of expansion, and then, when contraction set
in, it whirled on faster and faster until, eventually,
the critical centrifugal stage was reached and the great
breakup began.
57:3.6
500,000,000,000
years ago the first Andronover sun was born. This
blazing streak broke away from the mother gravity grasp
and tore out into space on an independent adventure in
the cosmos of creation. Its orbit was determined by its
path of escape. Such young suns quickly become spherical
and start out on their long and eventful careers as the
stars of space. Excepting terminal nebular nucleuses,
the vast majority of Orvonton suns have had an analogous
birth. These escaping suns pass through varied periods
of evolution and subsequent universe service.
57:3.7
400,000,000,000
years ago began the recaptive period of the Andronover
nebula. Many of the near-by and smaller suns were
recaptured as a result of the gradual enlargement and
further condensation of the mother nucleus. Very soon
there was inaugurated the terminal phase of nebular
condensation, the period which always precedes the final
segregation of these immense space aggregations of
energy and matter.
57:3.8
It was scarcely a million years subsequent to this epoch
that Michael of Nebadon, a Creator Son of Paradise,
selected this disintegrating nebula as the site of his
adventure in universe building. Almost immediately the
architectural worlds of Salvington and the one hundred
constellation headquarters groups of planets were begun.
It required almost one million years to complete these
clusters of specially created worlds. The local system
headquarters planets were constructed over a period
extending from that time to about five billion years
ago.
57:3.9
300,000,000,000
years ago the Andronover solar circuits were well
established, and the nebular system was passing through
a transient period of relative physical stability. About
this time the staff of Michael arrived on Salvington,
and the Uversa government of Orvonton extended physical
recognition to the local universe of Nebadon.
57:3.10
200,000,000,000
years ago witnessed the progression of contraction and
condensation with enormous heat generation in the
Andronover central cluster, or nuclear mass. Relative
space appeared even in the regions near the central
mother-sun wheel. The outer regions were becoming more
stabilized and better organized; some planets revolving
around the newborn suns had cooled sufficiently to be
suitable for life implantation. The oldest inhabited
planets of Nebadon date from these times.
57:3.11
Now the completed universe mechanism of Nebadon first
begins to function, and Michael's creation is registered
on Uversa as a universe of inhabitation and progressive
mortal ascension.
57:3.12
100,000,000,000
years ago the nebular apex of condensation tension was
reached; the point of maximum heat tension was attained.
This critical stage of gravity-heat contention sometimes
lasts for ages, but sooner or later, heat wins the
struggle with gravity, and the spectacular period of sun
dispersion begins. And this marks the end of the
secondary career of a space nebula.
4. TERTIARY AND QUARTAN STAGES
57:4.1
The primary stage of a nebula is circular; the
secondary, spiral; the tertiary stage is that of the
first sun dispersion, while the quartan embraces the
second and last cycle of sun dispersion, with the mother
nucleus ending either as a globular cluster or as a
solitary sun functioning as the center of a terminal
solar system.
57:4.2
75,000,000,000
years ago this nebula had attained the height of its
sun-family stage. This was the apex of the first period
of sun losses. The majority of these suns have since
possessed themselves of extensive systems of planets,
satellites, dark islands, comets, meteors, and cosmic
dust clouds.
57:4.3
50,000,000,000
years ago this first period of sun dispersion was
completed; the nebula was fast finishing its tertiary
cycle of existence, during which it gave origin to
876,926 sun systems.
57:4.4
25,000,000,000
years ago witnessed the completion of the tertiary cycle
of nebular life and brought about the organization and
relative stabilization of the far-flung starry systems
derived from this parent nebula. But the process of
physical contraction and increased heat production
continued in the central mass of the nebular remnant.
57:4.5
10,000,000,000
years ago the quartan cycle of Andronover began. The
maximum of nuclear-mass temperature had been attained;
the critical point of condensation was approaching. The
original mother nucleus was convulsing under the
combined pressure of its own internal-heat condensation
tension and the increasing gravity-tidal pull of the
surrounding swarm of liberated sun systems. The nuclear
eruptions which were to inaugurate the second nebular
sun cycle were imminent. The quartan cycle of nebular
existence was about to begin.
57:4.6
8,000,000,000
years ago the terrific terminal eruption began. Only the
outer systems are safe at the time of such a cosmic
upheaval. And this was the beginning of the end of the
nebula. This final sun disgorgement extended over a
period of almost two billion years.
57:4.7
7,000,000,000
years ago witnessed the height of the Andronover
terminal breakup. This was the period of the birth of
the larger terminal suns and the apex of the local
physical disturbances.
57:4.8
6,000,000,000
years ago marks the end of the terminal breakup and the
birth of your sun, the fifty-sixth from the last of the
Andronover second solar family. This final eruption of
the nebular nucleus gave birth to 136,702 suns, most of
them solitary orbs. The total number of suns and sun
systems having origin in the Andronover nebula was
1,013,628. The number of the solar system sun is
1,013,572.
57:4.9
And now the great Andronover nebula is no more, but it
lives on in the many suns and their planetary families
which originated in this mother cloud of space. The
final nuclear remnant of this magnificent nebula still
burns with a reddish glow and continues to give forth
moderate light and heat to its remnant planetary family
of one hundred and sixty-five worlds, which now revolve
about this venerable mother of two mighty generations of
the monarchs of light.
5. ORIGIN OF MONMATIA -- THE URANTIA SOLAR SYSTEM
57:5.1
5,000,000,000
years ago your sun was a comparatively isolated blazing
orb, having gathered to itself most of the near-by
circulating matter of space, remnants of the recent
upheaval which attended its own birth.
57:5.2
Today, your sun has achieved relative stability, but its
eleven and one-half year sunspot cycles betray that it
was a variable star in its youth. In the early days of
your sun the continued contraction and consequent
gradual increase of temperature initiated tremendous
convulsions on its surface. These titanic heaves
required three and one-half days to complete a cycle of
varying brightness. This variable state, this periodic
pulsation, rendered your sun highly responsive to
certain outside influences which were to be shortly
encountered.
57:5.3
Thus was the stage of local space set for the unique
origin of
Monmatia, that being the name of your sun's
planetary family, the solar system to which your world
belongs. Less than one per cent of the planetary systems
of Orvonton have had a similar origin.
57:5.4
4,500,000,000
years ago the enormous Angona system began its approach
to the neighborhood of this solitary sun. The center of
this great system was a dark giant of space, solid,
highly charged, and possessing tremendous gravity pull.
57:5.5
As Angona more closely approached the sun, at moments of
maximum expansion during solar pulsations, streams of
gaseous material were shot out into space as gigantic
solar tongues. At first these flaming gas tongues would
invariably fall back into the sun, but as Angona drew
nearer and nearer, the gravity pull of the gigantic
visitor became so great that these tongues of gas would
break off at certain points, the roots falling back into
the sun while the outer sections would become detached
to form independent bodies of matter, solar meteorites,
which immediately started to revolve about the sun in
elliptical orbits of their own.
57:5.6
As the Angona system drew nearer, the solar extrusions
grew larger and larger; more and more matter was drawn
from the sun to become independent circulating bodies in
surrounding space. This situation developed for about
five hundred thousand years until Angona made its
closest approach to the sun; whereupon the sun, in
conjunction with one of its periodic internal
convulsions, experienced a partial disruption; from
opposite sides and simultaneously, enormous volumes of
matter were disgorged. From the Angona side there was
drawn out a vast column of solar gases, rather pointed
at both ends and markedly bulging at the center, which
became permanently detached from the immediate gravity
control of the sun.
57:5.7
This great column of solar gases which was thus
separated from the sun subsequently evolved into the
twelve planets of the solar system. The repercussional
ejection of gas from the opposite side of the sun in
tidal sympathy with the extrusion of this gigantic solar
system ancestor, has since condensed into the meteors
and space dust of the solar system, although much, very
much, of this matter was subsequently recaptured by
solar gravity as the Angona system receded into remote
space.
57:5.8
Although Angona succeeded in drawing away the ancestral
material of the solar system planets and the enormous
volume of matter now circulating about the sun as
asteroids and meteors, it did not secure for itself any
of this solar matter. The visiting system did not come
quite close enough to actually steal any of the sun's
substance, but it did swing sufficiently close to draw
off into the intervening space all of the material
comprising the present-day solar system.
57:5.9
The five inner and five outer planets soon formed in
miniature from the cooling and condensing nucleuses in
the less massive and tapering ends of the gigantic
gravity bulge which Angona had succeeded in detaching
from the sun, while Saturn and Jupiter were formed from
the more massive and bulging central portions. The
powerful gravity pull of Jupiter and Saturn early
captured most of the material stolen from Angona as the
retrograde motion of certain of their satellites bears
witness.
57:5.10
Jupiter and Saturn, being derived from the very center
of the enormous column of superheated solar gases,
contained so much highly heated sun material that they
shone with a brilliant light and emitted enormous
volumes of heat; they were in reality secondary suns for
a short period after their formation as separate space
bodies. These two largest of the solar system planets
have remained largely gaseous to this day, not even yet
having cooled off to the point of complete condensation
or solidification.
57:5.11
The gas-contraction nucleuses of the other ten planets
soon reached the stage of solidification and so began to
draw to themselves increasing quantities of the meteoric
matter circulating in near-by space. The worlds of the
solar system thus had a double origin: nucleuses of gas
condensation later on augmented by the capture of
enormous quantities of meteors. Indeed they still
continue to capture meteors, but in greatly lessened
numbers.
57:5.12
The planets do not swing around the sun in the
equatorial plane of their solar mother, which they would
do if they had been thrown off by solar revolution.
Rather, they travel in the plane of the Angona solar
extrusion, which existed at a considerable angle to the
plane of the sun's equator.
57:5.13
While Angona was unable to capture any of the solar
mass, your sun did add to its metamorphosing planetary
family some of the circulating space material of the
visiting system. Due to the intense gravity field of
Angona, its tributary planetary family pursued orbits of
considerable distance from the dark giant; and shortly
after the extrusion of the solar system ancestral mass
and while Angona was yet in the vicinity of the sun,
three of the major planets of the Angona system swung so
near to the massive solar system ancestor that its
gravitational pull, augmented by that of the sun, was
sufficient to overbalance the gravity grasp of Angona
and to permanently detach these three tributaries of the
celestial wanderer.
57:5.14
All of the solar system material derived from the sun
was originally endowed with a homogeneous direction of
orbital swing, and had it not been for the intrusion of
these three foreign space bodies, all solar system
material would still maintain the same direction of
orbital movement. As it was, the impact of the three
Angona tributaries injected new and foreign directional
forces into the emerging solar system with the resultant
appearance of
retrograde motion. Retrograde motion in any
astronomic system is always accidental and always
appears as a result of the collisional impact of foreign
space bodies. Such collisions may not always produce
retrograde motion, but no retrograde ever appears except
in a system containing masses which have diverse
origins.
6. THE SOLAR SYSTEM STAGE -- THE PLANET-FORMING ERA
57:6.1
Subsequent to the birth of the solar system a period of
diminishing solar disgorgement ensued. Decreasingly, for
another five hundred thousand years, the sun continued
to pour forth diminishing volumes of matter into
surrounding space. But during these early times of
erratic orbits, when the surrounding bodies made their
nearest approach to the sun, the solar parent was able
to recapture a large portion of this meteoric material.
57:6.2
The planets nearest the sun were the first to have their
revolutions slowed down by tidal friction. Such
gravitational influences also contribute to the
stabilization of planetary orbits while acting as a
brake on the rate of planetary-axial revolution, causing
a planet to revolve ever slower until axial revolution
ceases, leaving one hemisphere of the planet always
turned toward the sun or larger body, as is illustrated
by the planet Mercury and by the moon, which always
turns the same face toward Urantia.
57:6.3
When the tidal frictions of the moon and the earth
become equalized, the earth will always turn the same
hemisphere toward the moon, and the day and month will
be analogous -- in length about forty-seven days. When
such stability of orbits is attained, tidal frictions
will go into reverse action, no longer driving the moon
farther away from the earth but gradually drawing the
satellite toward the planet. And then, in that
far-distant future when the moon approaches to within
about eleven thousand miles of the earth, the gravity
action of the latter will cause the moon to disrupt, and
this tidal-gravity explosion will shatter the moon into
small particles, which may assemble about the world as
rings of matter resembling those of Saturn or may be
gradually drawn into the earth as meteors.
57:6.4
If space bodies are similar in size and density,
collisions may occur. But if two space bodies of similar
density are relatively unequal in size, then, if the
smaller progressively approaches the larger, the
disruption of the smaller body will occur when the
radius of its orbit becomes less than two and one-half
times the radius of the larger body. Collisions among
the giants of space are rare indeed, but these
gravity-tidal explosions of lesser bodies are quite
common.
57:6.5
Shooting stars occur in swarms because they are the
fragments of larger bodies of matter which have been
disrupted by tidal gravity exerted by near-by and still
larger space bodies. Saturn's rings are the fragments of
a disrupted satellite. One of the moons of Jupiter is
now approaching dangerously near the critical zone of
tidal disruption and, within a few million years, will
either be claimed by the planet or will undergo
gravity-tidal disruption. The fifth planet of the solar
system of long, long ago traversed an irregular orbit,
periodically making closer and closer approach to
Jupiter until it entered the critical zone of
gravity-tidal disruption, was swiftly fragmentized, and
became the present-day cluster of asteroids.
57:6.6
4,000,000,000
years ago witnessed the organization of the Jupiter and
Saturn systems much as observed today except for their
moons, which continued to increase in size for several
billions of years. In fact, all of the planets and
satellites of the solar system are still growing as the
result of continued meteoric captures.
57:6.7
3,500,000,000
years ago the condensation nucleuses of the other ten
planets were well formed, and the cores of most of the
moons were intact, though some of the smaller satellites
later united to make the present-day larger moons. This
age may be regarded as the era of planetary assembly.
57:6.8
3,000,000,000
years ago the solar system was functioning much as it
does today. Its members continued to grow in size as
space meteors continued to pour in upon the planets and
their satellites at a prodigious rate.
57:6.9
About this time your solar system was placed on the
physical registry of Nebadon and given its name,
Monmatia.
57:6.10
2,500,000,000
years ago the planets had grown immensely in size.
Urantia was a well-developed sphere about one tenth its
present mass and was still growing rapidly by meteoric
accretion.
57:6.11
All of this tremendous activity is a normal part of the
making of an evolutionary world on the order of Urantia
and constitutes the astronomic preliminaries to the
setting of the stage for the beginning of the physical
evolution of such worlds of space in preparation for the
life adventures of time.
7. THE METEORIC ERA -- THE VOLCANIC AGE
THE PRIMITIVE PLANETARY ATMOSPHERE
57:7.1
Throughout these early times the space regions of the
solar system were swarming with small disruptive and
condensation bodies, and in the absence of a protective
combustion atmosphere such space bodies crashed directly
on the surface of Urantia. These incessant impacts kept
the surface of the planet more or less heated, and this,
together with the increased action of gravity as the
sphere grew larger, began to set in operation those
influences which gradually caused the heavier elements,
such as iron, to settle more and more toward the center
of the planet.
57:7.2
2,000,000,000
years ago the earth began decidedly to gain on the moon.
Always had the planet been larger than its satellite,
but there was not so much difference in size until about
this time, when enormous space bodies were captured by
the earth. Urantia was then about one fifth its present
size and had become large enough to hold the primitive
atmosphere which had begun to appear as a result of the
internal elemental contest between the heated interior
and the cooling crust.
57:7.3
Definite volcanic action dates from these times. The
internal heat of the earth continued to be augmented by
the deeper and deeper burial of the radioactive or
heavier elements brought in from space by the meteors.
The study of these radioactive elements will reveal that
Urantia is more than one billion years old on its
surface. The radium clock is your most reliable
timepiece for making scientific estimates of the age of
the planet, but all such estimates are too short because
the radioactive materials open to your scrutiny are all
derived from the earth's surface and hence represent
Urantia's comparatively recent acquirements of these
elements.
57:7.4
1,500,000,000
years ago the earth was two thirds its present size,
while the moon was nearing its present mass. Earth's
rapid gain over the moon in size enabled it to begin the
slow robbery of the little atmosphere which its
satellite originally had.
57:7.5
Volcanic action is now at its height. The whole earth is
a veritable fiery inferno, the surface resembling its
earlier molten state before the heavier metals
gravitated toward the center.
This is the
volcanic age. Nevertheless, a crust, consisting
chiefly of the comparatively lighter granite, is
gradually forming. The stage is being set for a planet
which can someday support life.
57:7.6
The primitive planetary atmosphere is slowly evolving,
now containing some water vapor, carbon monoxide, carbon
dioxide, and hydrogen chloride, but there is little or
no free nitrogen or free oxygen. The atmosphere of a
world in the volcanic age presents a queer spectacle. In
addition to the gases enumerated it is heavily charged
with numerous volcanic gases and, as the air belt
matures, with the combustion products of the heavy
meteoric showers which are constantly hurtling in upon
the planetary surface. Such meteoric combustion keeps
the atmospheric oxygen very nearly exhausted, and the
rate of meteoric bombardment is still tremendous.
57:7.7
Presently, the atmosphere became more settled and cooled
sufficiently to start precipitation of rain on the hot
rocky surface of the planet. For thousands of years
Urantia was enveloped in one vast and continuous blanket
of steam. And during these ages the sun never shone upon
the earth's surface.
57:7.8
Much of the carbon of the atmosphere was abstracted to
form the carbonates of the various metals which abounded
in the superficial layers of the planet. Later on, much
greater quantities of these carbon gases were consumed
by the early and prolific plant life.
57:7.9
Even in the later periods the continuing lava flows and
the incoming meteors kept the oxygen of the air almost
completely used up. Even the early deposits of the soon
appearing primitive ocean contain no colored stones or
shales. And for a long time after this ocean appeared,
there was virtually no free oxygen in the atmosphere;
and it did not appear in significant quantities until it
was later generated by the seaweeds and other forms of
vegetable life.
57:7.10
The primitive planetary atmosphere of the volcanic age
affords little protection against the collisional
impacts of the meteoric swarms. Millions upon millions
of meteors are able to penetrate such an air belt to
smash against the planetary crust as solid bodies. But
as time passes, fewer and fewer prove large enough to
resist the ever-stronger friction shield of the
oxygen-enriching atmosphere of the later eras.
8. CRUSTAL STABILIZATION
THE AGE OF EARTHQUAKES
THE WORLD OCEAN AND THE FIRST CONTINENT
57:8.1
1,000,000,000
years ago is the date of the actual beginning of Urantia
history. The planet had attained approximately its
present size. And about this time it was placed upon the
physical registries of Nebadon and given its name,
Urantia.
57:8.2
The atmosphere, together with incessant moisture
precipitation, facilitated the cooling of the earth's
crust. Volcanic action early equalized internal-heat
pressure and crustal contraction; and as volcanoes
rapidly decreased, earthquakes made their appearance as
this epoch of crustal cooling and adjustment progressed.
57:8.3
The real geologic history of Urantia begins with the
cooling of the earth's crust sufficiently to cause the
formation of the first ocean. Water-vapor condensation
on the cooling surface of the earth, once begun,
continued until it was virtually complete. By the end of
this period the ocean was world-wide, covering the
entire planet to an average depth of over one mile. The
tides were then in play much as they are now observed,
but this primitive ocean was not salty; it was
practically a fresh-water covering for the world. In
those days, most of the chlorine was combined with
various metals, but there was enough, in union with
hydrogen, to render this water faintly acid.
57:8.4
At the opening of this faraway era, Urantia should be
envisaged as a water-bound planet. Later on, deeper and
hence denser lava flows came out upon the bottom of the
present Pacific Ocean, and this part of the
water-covered surface became considerably depressed. The
first continental land mass emerged from the world ocean
in compensatory adjustment of the equilibrium of the
gradually thickening earth's crust.
57:8.5
950,000,000
years ago Urantia presents the picture of one great
continent of land and one large body of water, the
Pacific Ocean. Volcanoes are still widespread and
earthquakes are both frequent and severe. Meteors
continue to bombard the earth, but they are diminishing
in both frequency and size. The atmosphere is clearing
up, but the amount of carbon dioxide continues large.
The earth's crust is gradually stabilizing.
57:8.6
It was at about this time that Urantia was assigned to
the system of Satania for planetary administration and
was placed on the life registry of Norlatiadek. Then
began the administrative recognition of the small and
insignificant sphere which was destined to be the planet
whereon Michael would subsequently engage in the
stupendous undertaking of mortal bestowal, would
participate in those experiences which have since caused
Urantia to become locally known as the "world of the
cross."
57:8.7
900,000,000
years ago witnessed the arrival on Urantia of the first
Satania scouting party sent out from Jerusem to examine
the planet and make a report on its adaptation for a
life-experiment station. This commission consisted of
twenty-four members, embracing Life Carriers, Lanonandek
Sons, Melchizedeks, seraphim, and other orders of
celestial life having to do with the early days of
planetary organization and administration.
57:8.8
After making a painstaking survey of the planet, this
commission returned to Jerusem and reported favorably to
the System Sovereign, recommending that Urantia be
placed on the life-experiment registry. Your world was
accordingly registered on Jerusem as a decimal planet,
and the Life Carriers were notified that they would be
granted permission to institute new patterns of
mechanical, chemical, and electrical mobilization at the
time of their subsequent arrival with life
transplantation and implantation mandates.
57:8.9
In due course arrangements for the planetary occupation
were completed by the mixed commission of twelve on
Jerusem and approved by the planetary commission of
seventy on Edentia. These plans, proposed by the
advisory counselors of the Life Carriers, were finally
accepted on Salvington. Soon thereafter the Nebadon
broadcasts carried the announcement that Urantia would
become the stage whereon the Life Carriers would execute
their sixtieth Satania experiment designed to amplify
and improve the Satania type of the Nebadon life
patterns.
57:8.10
Shortly after Urantia was first recognized on the
universe broadcasts to all Nebadon, it was accorded full
universe status. Soon thereafter it was registered in
the records of the minor and the major sector
headquarters planets of the superuniverse; and before
this age was over, Urantia had found entry on the
planetary-life registry of Uversa.
57:8.11
This entire age was characterized by frequent and
violent storms. The early crust of the earth was in a
state of continual flux. Surface cooling alternated with
immense lava flows. Nowhere can there be found on the
surface of the world anything of this original planetary
crust. It has all been mixed up too many times with
extruding lavas of deep origins and admixed with
subsequent deposits of the early world-wide ocean.
57:8.12
Nowhere on the surface of the world will there be found
more of the modified remnants of these ancient preocean
rocks than in northeastern Canada around Hudson Bay.
This extensive granite elevation is composed of stone
belonging to the preoceanic ages. These rock layers have
been heated, bent, twisted, upcrumpled, and again and
again have they passed through these distorting
metamorphic experiences.
57:8.13
Throughout the oceanic ages, enormous layers of
fossil-free stratified stone were deposited on this
ancient ocean bottom. (Limestone can form as a result of
chemical precipitation; not all of the older limestone
was produced by marine-life deposition.) In none of
these ancient rock formations will there be found
evidences of life; they contain no fossils unless, by
some chance, later deposits of the water ages have
become mixed with these older prelife layers.
57:8.14
The earth's early crust was highly unstable, but
mountains were not in process of formation. The planet
contracted under gravity pressure as it formed.
Mountains are not the result of the collapse of the
cooling crust of a contracting sphere; they appear later
on as a result of the action of rain, gravity, and
erosion.
57:8.15
The continental land mass of this era increased until it
covered almost ten per cent of the earth's surface.
Severe earthquakes did not begin until the continental
mass of land emerged well above the water. When they
once began, they increased in frequency and severity for
ages. For millions upon millions of years earthquakes
have diminished, but Urantia still has an average of
fifteen daily.
57:8.16
850,000,000
years ago the first real epoch of the stabilization of
the earth's crust began. Most of the heavier metals had
settled down toward the center of the globe; the cooling
crust had ceased to cave in on such an extensive scale
as in former ages. There was established a better
balance between the land extrusion and the heavier ocean
bed. The flow of the subcrustal lava bed became
well-nigh world-wide, and this compensated and
stabilized the fluctuations due to cooling, contracting,
and superficial shifting.
57:8.17
Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes continued to diminish
in frequency and severity. The atmosphere was clearing
of volcanic gases and water vapor, but the percentage of
carbon dioxide was still high.
57:8.18
Electric disturbances in the air and in the earth were
also decreasing. The lava flows had brought to the
surface a mixture of elements which diversified the
crust and better insulated the planet from certain
space-energies. And all of this did much to facilitate
the control of terrestrial energy and to regulate its
flow as is disclosed by the functioning of the magnetic
poles.
57:8.19
800,000,000
years ago witnessed the inauguration of the first great
land epoch, the age of increased continental emergence.
57:8.20
Since the condensation of the earth's hydrosphere, first
into the world ocean and subsequently into the Pacific
Ocean, this latter body of water should be visualized as
then covering nine tenths of the earth's surface.
Meteors falling into the sea accumulated on the ocean
bottom, and meteors are, generally speaking, composed of
heavy materials. Those falling on the land were largely
oxidized, subsequently worn down by erosion, and washed
into the ocean basins. Thus the ocean bottom grew
increasingly heavy, and added to this was the weight of
a body of water at some places ten miles deep.
57:8.21
The increasing downthrust of the Pacific Ocean operated
further to upthrust the continental land mass. Europe
and Africa began to rise out of the Pacific depths along
with those masses now called Australia, North and South
America, and the continent of Antarctica, while the bed
of the Pacific Ocean engaged in a further compensatory
sinking adjustment. By the end of this period almost one
third of the earth's surface consisted of land, all in
one continental body.
57:8.22
With this increase in land elevation the first climatic
differences of the planet appeared. Land elevation,
cosmic clouds, and oceanic influences are the chief
factors in climatic fluctuation. The backbone of the
Asiatic land mass reached a height of almost nine miles
at the time of the maximum land emergence. Had there
been much moisture in the air hovering over these highly
elevated regions, enormous ice blankets would have
formed; the ice age would have arrived long before it
did. It was several hundred millions of years before so
much land again appeared above water.
57:8.23
750,000,000
years ago the first breaks in the continental land mass
began as the great north-and-south cracking, which later
admitted the ocean waters and prepared the way for the
westward drift of the continents of North and South
America, including Greenland. The long east-and-west
cleavage separated Africa from Europe and severed the
land masses of Australia, the Pacific Islands, and
Antarctica from the Asiatic continent.
57:8.24
700,000,000
years ago Urantia was approaching the ripening of
conditions suitable for the support of life. The
continental land drift continued; increasingly the ocean
penetrated the land as long fingerlike seas providing
those shallow waters and sheltered bays which are so
suitable as a habitat for marine life.
57:8.25
650,000,000
years ago witnessed the further separation of the land
masses and, in consequence, a further extension of the
continental seas. And these waters were rapidly
attaining that degree of saltiness which was essential
to Urantia life.
57:8.26
It was these seas and their successors that laid down
the life records of Urantia, as subsequently discovered
in well-preserved stone pages, volume upon volume, as
era succeeded era and age grew upon age. These inland
seas of olden times were truly the cradle of evolution.
57:8.27
Presented by a Life Carrier, a member of the original
Urantia Corps and now a resident observer.
*
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