Study Says 3.26-Billion-Year-Old Meteorite Fed Early Microbes After 200x Chicxulub-Scale Impact
Updated
Updated · The Brighter Side of News · Aug 1
Study Says 3.26-Billion-Year-Old Meteorite Fed Early Microbes After 200x Chicxulub-Scale Impact
3 articles · Updated · The Brighter Side of News · Aug 1
Summary
South African rock layers show a 3.26-billion-year-old impact first devastated shallow seas with tsunamis, heat and darkness, then appears to have helped early microbes rebound.
The S2 impactor was estimated at 37 to 58 kilometers wide and 50 to 200 times the mass of the dinosaur-killing object, with deposits at Umbaumba and Bruce’s Hill matching tsunami erosion and fallback debris.
Iron levels rose about sixfold at Bruce’s Hill and up to 17-fold at Umbaumba after the strike, which researchers say likely mixed iron-rich deep water into sunlit seas; phosphorus also spiked to 1,300 ppm in one sample.
Those nutrient surges may have favored iron-using microbes even after photosynthetic life was hit by years to decades of dust-darkened skies and more than a year of coastal evaporation and heat stress.
The findings, published in PNAS, suggest giant impacts on early Earth could both destroy habitats and briefly expand resources for life on a largely microbial planet.