NOS news•yesterday, 11:15 p.m
A large meteorite that hit the Earth more than 3 billion years ago was a boon to life on Earth. This is obvious from an American research which was published in the scientific journal PNAS.
The most famous meteorite impact in history is about 66 million years ago, which caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. But a meteorite that fell to Earth 3.26 billion years ago was up to 200 times larger, according to the researchers.
The impact destroyed much life on Earth. But according to the researchers, the meteorite also released a lot of iron from the soil, an important nutrient for bacteria and single-celled organisms.
Contracts will be normalized in the future, at most in a few decades, said lead author Nadja Drabon to the Reuters news agency. “Not only did life recover quickly, but it even grew.”
A boiling ocean
The researchers studied material from ancient rocks in northeastern South Africa, the Barberton Greenstone Belt. Organic matter has been preserved here.
The diameter of the meteorite was about 37 to 58 kilometers and it probably landed in the ocean, says researcher Drabon. This caused a tsunami, which caused flooding all over the world. The effect would also have warmed the atmosphere so much that the upper level of the ocean began to boil.
In the long run, microorganisms benefited from the effect, which acted like a “giant fertilizer bomb,” according to researchers. “We usually think of meteorite impacts as catastrophic and life-threatening,” said Drabon. “But 3.2 billion years ago, life was much simpler. Microorganisms are relatively simple, versatile and reproduce very quickly. “
2024-10-21 21:15:00
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