Evidence that Earth’s continents were formed by giant meteorite impacts has been uncovered in new research.
New research has uncovered the strongest evidence yet that Earth’s continents were formed by giant meteorite impacts, which were especially common during the first billion years or so of our planet’s four-and-a-half-billion-year history. Curtin University researchers conducted the study, which was published on August 10, 2022, in the journal Nature.
According to Dr. Tim Johnson, from Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, the idea that the continents originally formed at sites of giant meteorite impacts has been around for decades. However, until now there was little solid evidence to support the theory.
“By examining tiny crystals of the mineral zircon in rocks from the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia, which represents Earth’s best-preserved remnant of ancient crust, we found evidence of these giant meteorite impacts,” Dr. Johnson said.
“Studying the composition of oxygen isotopes in these zircon crystals revealed a ‘top-down’ process starting with the melting of rocks near the surface and progressing deeper, consistent with the geological effect of giant meteorite impacts.
“Our research provides the first solid evidence that the processes that ultimately formed the continents began with giant meteorite impacts, similar to those responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs, but which occurred billions of years earlier.”
Understanding the formation and ongoing evolution of the Earth’s continents is crucial according to Dr. Johnson because these landmasses host the majority of Earth’s biomass, all humans, and almost all of the planet’s important mineral deposits.
“Not least, the continents host critical metals such as lithium, tin, and nickel, commodities that are essential to the emerging green technologies needed to fulfill our obligation to mitigate climate change,” Dr. Johnson said.
“These mineral deposits are the end result of a process known as crustal differentiation, which began with the formation of the earliest landmasses, of which the Pilbara Craton is just one of many.
“Data related to other areas of ancient continental crust on Earth appears to show patterns similar to those recognized in Western Australia. We would like to test our findings on these ancient rocks to see if, as we suspect, our model is more widely applicable.”
Reference: “Giant impacts and the origin and evolution of continents” by Tim E. Johnson, Christopher L. Kirkland, Yongjun Lu, R. Hugh Smithies, Michael Brown and Michael I. H. Hartnady, 10 August 2022, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04956-y
Dr. Johnson is affiliated with The Institute for Geoscience Research (TIGeR), Curtin’s flagship earth sciences research institute.
New Evidence That Giant Asteroid Impacts Created the Continents & Latest News Update
New Evidence That Giant Asteroid Impacts Created the Continents & More Live News
All this news that I have made and shared for you people, you will like it very much and in it we keep bringing topics for you people like every time so that you keep getting news information like trending topics and you It is our goal to be able to get
all kinds of news without going through us so that we can reach you the latest and best news for free so that you can move ahead further by getting the information of that news together with you. Later on, we will continue
to give information about more today world news update types of latest news through posts on our website so that you always keep moving forward in that news and whatever kind of information will be there, it will definitely be conveyed to you people.
New Evidence That Giant Asteroid Impacts Created the Continents & More News Today
All this news that I have brought up to you or will be the most different and best news that you people are not going to get anywhere, along with the information Trending News, Breaking News, Health News, Science News, Sports News, Entertainment News, Technology News, Business News, World News of this made available to all of you so that you are always connected with the news, stay ahead in the matter and keep getting today news all types of news for free till today so that you can get the news by getting it. Always take two steps forward
Credit Goes To News Website – This Original Content Owner News Website . This Is Not My Content So If You Want To Read Original Content You Can Follow Below Links