I love when we discover crazy things like this that shake up what we thought was going on with Earth billions of years ago.
The Boring Billion refers to the period between 1.8 billion and 800 million years ago. Even though this interval encompassed the breakup and assembly of two ancient supercontinents, Nuna and Rodinia, scientists gave the period this name due to a perceived lack of upheaval.
Well thanks to cutting edge research now we know that the breakup of Nuna was anything but boring!
As pieces of Nuna drifted away from the supercontinent's core, shallow seas mushroomed in the gaps between them that were more temperate and oxygen-rich than previous oceans had been, first-of-their-kind simulations revealed.
The amount of shallow seas around land masses doubled in size and it turns out that even subduction zones changed.
Subduction zones shortened overall due to how the plates were shifting, according to the study.As subduction zones shortened, the amount of CO2 escaping from Earth's interior into the atmosphere decreased. This cooled the planet and helped establish the oxygen-rich conditions in the newly formed shallow seas, and these relatively stable ecosystems gave rise to more complex life than had existed so far, the researchers suggested.
These changes are now believed to have been responsible for the diversification of eukaryotes which all plants, animals, and fungi are part of.