there are remnants of older geological ages that can help fill in the gaps of the evidence we have and make sense of timescales that are mind bending.

Other amazing things about the earth that change 'life' or rotation and orbit are things like plate tectonics and changing magnetic fields.

The Moon and tidal flows push and pull on the plates along with the internal convection.

There is an area in the Indian ocean that is lower than all the areas of the ocean because the bottom is actually 'deeper' than any where else in all the oceans. A giant bowl basically.

There is another area near South America that has a reduced magnetic field that satellites have to adjust for to protect themselves from solar radiation.

The shape of the earth is always changing.