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Science


STUDY RECONSTRUCTS EARTH’S METEORITE IMPACTS OVER PAST 500 MILLION YEARS

David Bressan
ContributorOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
I deal with the rocky road to our modern understanding of earth
Jun 30, 2021,08:03am EDT|

Illustration of a large asteroid colliding with [+][-]
Earth.
Getty

For the first time, a study has tracked the meteorite flux to Earth over the
past 500 million years. Contrary to current theories, researchers have
determined that major collisions in the asteroid belt have not generally
affected the number of impacts with Earth to any great extent.


Ad



"The research community previously believed that meteorite flux to Earth was
connected to dramatic events in the asteroid belt. The new study, however, shows
that the flux has instead been very stable," says Birger Schmitz, professor of
geology at Lund University in Sweden and one of the authors of the study
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy.



To conduct the study, the researchers dissolved almost ten tons of sedimentary
rocks from ancient seabeds in strong acids because the sediment contains residue
from the meteorites dating back to when they fell to Earth.




Meteorites contain a small fraction of a mineral, a chromium-oxide, which is
very resistant to degradation. The microscopic chromium-oxide grains were sifted
out in the laboratory and analyzed.



"The dissolved sediment represents 15 periods over the past 500 million years.
In total, we have extracted chromium-oxide from almost 10,000 different
meteorites. Chemical analyses then enabled us to determine which types of
meteorites the grains represent," says Schmitz.

A couple of thousand meteorites land on the Earth's surface every year, and
approximately 63,000 meteorites have been documented. Based on the chemical
composition, it is believed that most rocks from space originate from the
asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Collisions between asteroids send
fragments into near-Earth orbit, where they eventuall are captured by Earth's
gravity and finally impact on the surface.



The researchers "were very surprised to learn that only one of the 70 largest
asteroid collisions that took place over the past 500 million years resulted in
an increased flux of meteorites to Earth. For some reason, most of the rocks
stay in the asteroid belt."

The study not only upends generally accepted meteorite flux theories; it also
provides entirely new perspectives on which types of celestial bodies are at
greatest risk of colliding with Earth and where in the solar system they
originate.

From a geological time perspective, kilometer-sized celestial bodies collide
with the Earth on a regular basis. About 66 million years ago, the Chicxulub
asteroid stretching over 10 kilometers in size hit the Yucatán Peninsula, likely
contributing to the demise of the dinosaurs. Impacts of a similar size are
estimated to happen every 100 million years.

Minor events are more common. The 1908 Tunguska Event, one of the largest
explosions ever recorded in history, likely was caused by a 200-meter-wide
asteroid burning up in Earth's atmosphere. On August 10, 1972, an asteroid
passed within 57 kilometers of Earth, causing a fireball in the sky seen above
Utah to Alberta. The latest example is the Chelyabinsk impact, when a small
asteroid (approximately 20 meters in diameter) exploded above the Russian town
of Chelyabinsk in February 2013. The explosion generated a shock wave injuring
about 1,500 people.



"Future impact from even a small asteroid for example in the sea close to a
populated area could lead to disastrous outcomes. This study provides important
understanding that we can use to prevent this from happening; for example, by
attempting to influence the trajectory of rapidly approaching celestial bodies,"
the study concludes.



Get the best of Forbes to your inbox with the latest insights from experts
across the globe.
David Bressan

I'm a freelance geologist working mostly in the Eastern Alps. I graduated in
2007 with a project studying how permafrost, that´s frozen soil, is reacting to
the more visibl…

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