Evidence that giant meteorite impacts created the continents

During the first billion years or so of our planet's history, there were a lot of giant meteorite impacts that caused the continents to form.

There was little evidence to support the idea that the continents were formed at the sites of giant meteorite impacts, according to Dr. Tim Johnson.

Dr. Johnson said that they found evidence of giant meteorite impacts by examining tiny crystals of the mineral zircon in rocks.

The top-down process that began with the melting of rocks near the surface and progressed deeper was consistent with the geological effect of giant meteorites.

Our research shows that the processes that formed the continents were similar to those that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Dr. Johnson said that understanding the formation and ongoing evolution of the Earth's continents was crucial given that these landmasses host the majority of Earth's biomass, all humans and almost all of the planet's important minerals.

The continents host critical metals that are essential to the emerging green technologies needed to mitigate climate change.

The mineral deposits are the result of a process called crustal differentiation, which began with the formation of the earliest landmasses.

Patterns similar to those seen in Western Australia can be found in data related to other areas of ancient continental crust. To see if our model is more widely applicable, we want to test it on these ancient rocks.

The paper was published in Nature.

More information: Tim Johnson, Giant impacts and the origin and evolution of continents, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04956-y. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04956-y Journal information: Nature Citation: Evidence that giant meteorite impacts created the continents (2022, August 10) retrieved 10 August 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-08-evidence-giant-meteorite-impacts-continents.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.