New Curtin’s study provides the strongest evidence to date that the Earth’s continents were formed by huge meteorite impacts that were widespread throughout the first billion years or so of our planet’s 4.5 billion-year lifetime.

The theory that the continents were first formed at the sites of massive meteorite impacts has been around for a while, but up until now, there hasn’t been much evidence to back it up, according to Dr. Tim Johnson of Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

“By examining tiny crystals of the mineral zircon in rocks from the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia, which represents Earth’s best-preserved remnant of ancient crust,” says Dr. Johnson, they “found evidence of these giant meteorite impacts.”

Studying the oxygen isotope composition in these zircon crystals indicated a “top-down” mechanism that involved melting rocks close to the surface before moving deeper into the earth. This approach is consistent with the geological effects of massive meteorite impacts.

Our research offers the first convincing evidence that the mechanisms that eventually gave rise to the continents started with massive meteorite impacts that happened billions of years earlier than those that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Given that these landmasses are home to the vast majority of the planet’s biomass, all humans, and nearly all of the planet’s significant mineral reserves, Dr. Johnson said it is imperative to understand how the continents formed and are still evolving.

“Not least, the continents host critical metals such as lithium, tin and nickel, commodities that are essential to the emerging green technologies needed to fulfil our obligation to mitigate climate change,” adds Dr. Johnson.

“These mineral deposits are the end result of a process known as crustal differentiation, which began with the formation of the earliest landmasses, of which the Pilbara Craton is just one of many.

“Data related to other areas of ancient continental crust on Earth appears to show patterns similar to those recognised in Western Australia. We would like to test our findings on these ancient rocks to see if, as we suspect, our model is more widely applicable.”

Source: 10.1038/s41586-022-04956-y

Image Credit: Getty

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