It was a meteorite impact that could have contributed to the development of life on Earth.
The Paleoarchean era witnessed great changes in the environment and life on Earth.
When we talk about the impact of large meteorites on Earth, two concepts usually come to mind: the age of the dinosaurs and the extinction of a significant portion of life on the planet. However, in this case we are not talking about large animals and the destruction of life, quite the opposite. We’ll talk to you about how colossal meteorite could give a great one impulse to life in our little corner of the solar system.
Impact of a giant meteorite billions of years ago
Nadia Drabon is the lead author of a study published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in which we were able to learn how a meteorite, four times larger than Everest and it affected our planet 3.26 billion years ago. He meteorite S2far from causing a cataclysm, it may have been fundamental to the primitive development of life.
We’re talking about a space rock that was supposed to have size from 37 to 58 kilometers in diameterabout 200 times larger than the meteorite that destroyed the dinosaurs. Nadia Drabon, a geologist and professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University, suggests that not always such types of influence are negative from a life point of view. Moreover, according to what was published in independent media, he states:
(…) This study highlights that these impacts may have benefited life, especially the earliest… these impacts may have allowed life to flourish.
explanation since this life phenomenon begins with an analysis that assumes that tsunami so gigantic that the ocean and land eventually became mixed. The heat from the impact caused the ocean began to boilwhich led to heating of the atmosphere and a dense cloud of dust that covered the planet.
However it seems that after the event That bacterial life has been revived quickly, we’re talking about populations of single-celled creatures because they feeding was based on iron And phosphorus. The first of these elements could have been thrown from the depths of the ocean to the surface thanks to a great tsunami, and phosphorus could have arrived on Earth as an unexpected passenger of a meteorite.
Are bacteria fed on phosphorus and iron, could have been the key to thriving life on Earthaccording to a study conducted by geologist Nadia Drabon. Today you’ll have to travel to the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa to find evidence of the S2 meteorite. The geologist assures:
Imagine standing off the coast of Cape Cod in shallow water. It is a low energy environment with no strong currents. Then suddenly a giant tsunami comes, devastating and tearing apart the seabed.
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