Emily Chan
A massive meteorite that struck Earth early on in its history wreaked havoc on the planet, but the impact may have allowed life to flourish.
At the time, microbial life was the only type of life in existence. An analysis of the remnants of the 3.26 billion-year-old impact revealed that microbial life may have benefited from a meteorite strike.
The meteorite in question was 50 to 200 times larger than the one that killed all the non-avian dinosaurs. The meteorite, along with a tsunami that occurred as a result of the impact, unleashed nutrients into the atmosphere that were vital to microbes.
“Not only do we find that life has resilience because we still find evidence for life after the impact; we actually think there were changes in the environment that were really great for life,” said Nadja Drabon, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of planetary sciences at Harvard University.
Drabon and colleagues looked into a meteorite impact that took place during the Archean era (4 billion to 2.5 billion years ago) in what is now South Africa. The region was a shallow sea environment back then.
In the rock layers, the researchers could see spherules, which are tiny, glass-like orbs that form when silica-containing rock melts due to a meteorite impact. They also observed conglomerates, rocks made of other chunks of rock.
The conglomerates are proof that a worldwide tsunami destroyed the seafloor and mushed the debris into clumps. Remnants of the actual meteorite were detected in the chemistry of the rock layers.
The rock was a type of space rock known as a carbonaceous chondrite. It would’ve measured between 23 and 36 miles in diameter.
The South African site was far away from where the meteorite collided with the Earth, but it still experienced the consequences. The meteorite caused a tsunami that swept across the entire globe and generated enough dust to block the sun.
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