Space
Earth’s Precious Minerals Formed By A Single Planetary Smash?
Khushboo.K
First Posted: Oct 12, 2016 04:43 AM EDT
An enormous collision that had taken place before the formation of Earth's crust might have been responsible for the gold, platinum and various other metal deposits found on the planet, suggests a new study.
The current revelations go against the theories put forward earlier claiming that Earth's metals were formed over a course of several minor collisions. This could mean that Earth's history was way less violent than what the scientists thought previously.
Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan led a team of international scientists to run a computer simulation in order to track the evolution process of the Solar System's terrestrial planets over their first 300 million years. This has been the longest timescale to be examined for this event ever, according to Science Alert.
The findings suggested that one huge collision led to the creation of all precious minerals found under Earth's crust. It might possibly be the same collision that gave Earth its Moon. Hence, this study goes against the existing idea of these minerals being created by several smaller impacts caused by meteorites over a longer period of time.
Presence of these minerals near the crust of Earth in unusually high proportions, known as siderophile elements, is a scientific mystery because they might usually be expected to settle down close to the core.
The researchers' imitation of the whole process including the weighing of data regarding the minerals concentration on Earth, Mars and the Moon along with the information in hand about the Moon's craters showed that one massive collision could have been responsible for bringing this extra material to Earth in one blow.
For this theory to be true, the collision must have occurred before the Earth's crust was formed. This leads to the assumption of the impact taking place around 4.45 million years ago.
The ideas of the research team about how Earth got its precious minerals still remain hypothetical at this point but they fit neatly into the facts scientists have about the Moon. If these findings come out to be correct, and our Earth got its precious minerals with just one massive collision, then the early Earth was indeed a much more peaceful and less volatile place.
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First Posted: Oct 12, 2016 04:43 AM EDT
An enormous collision that had taken place before the formation of Earth's crust might have been responsible for the gold, platinum and various other metal deposits found on the planet, suggests a new study.
The current revelations go against the theories put forward earlier claiming that Earth's metals were formed over a course of several minor collisions. This could mean that Earth's history was way less violent than what the scientists thought previously.
Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan led a team of international scientists to run a computer simulation in order to track the evolution process of the Solar System's terrestrial planets over their first 300 million years. This has been the longest timescale to be examined for this event ever, according to Science Alert.
The findings suggested that one huge collision led to the creation of all precious minerals found under Earth's crust. It might possibly be the same collision that gave Earth its Moon. Hence, this study goes against the existing idea of these minerals being created by several smaller impacts caused by meteorites over a longer period of time.
Presence of these minerals near the crust of Earth in unusually high proportions, known as siderophile elements, is a scientific mystery because they might usually be expected to settle down close to the core.
The researchers' imitation of the whole process including the weighing of data regarding the minerals concentration on Earth, Mars and the Moon along with the information in hand about the Moon's craters showed that one massive collision could have been responsible for bringing this extra material to Earth in one blow.
For this theory to be true, the collision must have occurred before the Earth's crust was formed. This leads to the assumption of the impact taking place around 4.45 million years ago.
The ideas of the research team about how Earth got its precious minerals still remain hypothetical at this point but they fit neatly into the facts scientists have about the Moon. If these findings come out to be correct, and our Earth got its precious minerals with just one massive collision, then the early Earth was indeed a much more peaceful and less volatile place.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone