Geology

Helevos is approximately 3.8 billion years old, and differs from the planet Earth geologically in a number of ways. Magnetism

Like Earth, Helevos was subject to massive bombardment by planetary-sized objects during its hot early life, but accrued a much larger amount of iron and heavier metals than Earth. Helevos is smaller than Earth, but relatively much denser.

During the world's early molten stage, the majority of iron and heavy metals settled into the core, leaving Helevos with a gravity field slightly weaker than Earth's but with a much stronger magnetic field. This intense field protects the planet from intension solar activity, and encouraged the evolution of life. Continental Formation

Helevos originally had a high velocity spin, and was given a slight oscillation or 'wobble' by constant impacts. Earth suffered a major planetary impact with a Mars-sized object early in its history, which ejected a vast amount of light crust material that condensed to form the moon. The moon stabilised Earth's 'wobble', and slowed its rotation.

It also left a large amount of continental crustal material on one hemisphere - Pangea, Earth's first massive continent. With continental drift, this massive prehistoric landmass slowly broke apart to form Earth's modern continents, that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Helevos never suffered this kind of impact. Instead, the planet's rotation forced gases deep within the crust upwards and outwards towards the equator. This lifted the crust, creating a rough spread of rocky continents around the equatorial zones, with smaller continents at the poles. Plate Tectonics

Helevos has a continental plates much like earth, but does not have the deep abyssal seas with massive rifts which drive continental drift on on Earth. Consequently continental drift is much slower, although there are many volcanoes and earthquake zones. Life

Life developed early, in the warm shallow seas much like on Earth. Plants colonised the land first, and land-based life developed on the millions of islands, particularly in the rich marginal tide zones.

Helevos has had a shorter evolutionary history than earth, and rather than suffering mass-extinctions based on cosmic impacts, it has suffered extinctions based on storms and floods affecting the land. Sea-life has remained relatively unchanged, with a cold-blooded fish and amphibians being dominant.

On land, inundation-events have made evolution favour amphibious forms of life, and all the higher native species are descended from common amphibious ancestors, although many have lost their water-breathing abilities.