DISAMPING KANAN INI.............
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Asteroid
dampak signifikan Asteroid ubah bumi kuno
Penelitian
baru menunjukkan bahwa lebih dari empat miliar tahun yang lalu, permukaan bumi diproses
ulang akibat dampak asteroid raksasa. Model baru berdasarkan data .... lunar dan
terestrial data sheds light pada bombardments asteroid peran yang
dimainkan dalam evolusi geologi lapisan paling atas bumi
Asteroid impacts significantly altered ancient Earth
Date:
July 31,
2014
Source:
Arizona State University
Summary:
New research shows that more than four billion years
ago, the surface of Earth was heavily reprocessed as a result of giant asteroid
impacts. A new model based on existing lunar and terrestrial data sheds light
on the role asteroid bombardments played in the geological evolution of the
uppermost layers of the Hadean Earth.
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New research shows that more than four billion years ago,
the surface of Earth was heavily reprocessed -- or mixed, buried and melted --
as a result of giant asteroid impacts. A new terrestrial bombardment model
based on existing lunar and terrestrial data sheds light on the role asteroid
bombardments played in the geological evolution of the uppermost layers of the
Hadean Earth (approximately 4 to 4.5 billion years ago).
An
international team of researchers published their findings in the July 31, 2014
issue of Nature.
"When
we look at the present day, we have a very high fidelity timeline over the last
about 500 million years of what's happened on Earth, and we have a pretty good
understanding that plate tectonics and volcanism and all these kinds of
processes have happened more or less the same way over the last couple of
billion years," says Lindy Elkins-Tanton, director of the School of Earth
and Space Exploration at Arizona State University.
But, in the
very beginning of Earth's formation, the first 500 million years, there's a
less well-known period which has typically been called the Hadean (meaning
hell-like) because it was assumed that it was wildly hot and volcanic and
everything was covered with magma -- completely unlike the present day.
Terrestrial
planet formation models indicate Earth went through a sequence of major growth
phases: accretion of planetesimals and planetary embryos over many tens of
millions of years; a giant impact that led to the formation of our Moon; and
then the late bombardment, when giant asteroids, dwarfing the one that
presumably killed the dinosaurs, periodically hit ancient Earth.
While
researchers estimate accretion during late bombardment contributed less than
one percent of Earth's present-day mass, giant asteroid impacts still had a
profound effect on the geological evolution of early Earth. Prior to four
billion years ago Earth was resurfaced over and over by voluminous
impact-generated melt. Furthermore, large collisions as late as about four
billion years ago, may have repeatedly boiled away existing oceans into steamy
atmospheres. Despite heavy bombardment, the findings are compatible with the
claim of liquid water on Earth's surface as early as about 4.3 billion years
ago based on geochemical data.
A key part
of Earth's mysterious infancy period that has not been well quantified in the
past is the kind of impacts Earth was experiencing at the end of accretion. How
big and how frequent were those incoming bombardments and what were their
effects on the surface of the Earth? How much did they affect the ability of
the now cooling crust to actually form plates and start to subduct and make
plate tectonics? What kind of volcanism did it produce that was different from
volcanoes today?"
"We are
increasingly understanding both the similarities and the differences to present
day Earth conditions and plate tectonics," says Elkins-Tanton. "And
this study is a major step in that direction, trying to bridge that time from
the last giant accretionary impact that largely completed the Earth and
produced the Moon to the point where we have something like today's plate
tectonics and habitable surface."
The new
research reveals that asteroidal collisions not only severely altered the
geology of the Hadean Earth, but likely played a major role in the subsequent
evolution of life on Earth as well.
"Prior
to approximately four billion years ago, no large region of Earth's surface
could have survived untouched by impacts and their effects," says Simone
Marchi, of NASA's Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute at the
Southwest Research Institute. "The new picture of the Hadean Earth
emerging from this work has important implications for its habitability."
Large
impacts had particularly severe effects on existing ecosystems. Researchers
found that on average, Hadean Earth could have been hit by one to four
impactors that were more than 600 miles wide and capable of global
sterilization, and by three to seven impactors more than 300 miles wide and
capable of global ocean vaporization.
"During
that time, the lag between major collisions was long enough to allow intervals
of more clement conditions, at least on a local scale," said Marchi.
"Any life emerging during the Hadean eon likely needed to be resistant to
high temperatures, and could have survived such a violent period in Earth's
history by thriving in niches deep underground or in the ocean's crust."
Story
Source:
The above
story is based on materials provided by Arizona State University. Note: Materials may be edited
for content and length.
Journal
Reference:
- S. Marchi, W. F. Bottke, L. T. Elkins-Tanton, M. Bierhaus, K. Wuennemann, A. Morbidelli, D. A. Kring. Widespread mixing and burial of Earth’s Hadean crust by asteroid impacts. Nature, 2014; 511 (7511): 578 DOI: 10.1038/nature13539