The Asteroid Impact Connection of Planetary Evolution

The Asteroid Impact Connection of Planetary Evolution PDF Author: Andrew Y. Glikson
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940076328X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 151

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Book Description
When in 1981 Louis and Walter Alvarez, the father and son team, unearthed a tell-tale Iridium-rich sedimentary horizon at the 65 million years-old Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary at Gubbio, Italy, their find heralded a paradigm shift in the study of terrestrial evolution. Since the 1980s the discovery and study of asteroid impact ejecta in the oldest well-preserved terrains of Western Australia and South Africa, by Don Lowe, Gary Byerly, Bruce Simonson, Scott Hassler, the author and others, and the documentation of new exposed and buried impact structures in several continents, have led to a resurgence of the idea of the catastrophism theory of Cuvier, previously largely supplanted by the uniformitarian theory of Hutton and Lyell. Several mass extinction of species events are known to have occurred in temporal proximity to large asteroid impacts, global volcanic eruptions and continental splitting. Likely links are observed between asteroid clusters and the 580 Ma acritarch radiation, end-Devonian extinction, end-Triassic extinction and end-Jurassic extinction. New discoveries of ~3.5 – 3.2 Ga-old impact fallout units in South Africa have led Don Lowe and Gary Byerly to propose a protracted prolongation of the Late Heavy Bombardment (~3.95-3.85 Ga) in the Earth-Moon system. Given the difficulty in identifying asteroid impact ejecta units and buried impact structures, it is likely new discoveries of impact signatures are in store, which would further profoundly alter models of terrestrial evolution. .

The Asteroid Impact Connection of Planetary Evolution

The Asteroid Impact Connection of Planetary Evolution PDF Author: Andrew Y. Glikson
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940076328X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 151

Get Book Here

Book Description
When in 1981 Louis and Walter Alvarez, the father and son team, unearthed a tell-tale Iridium-rich sedimentary horizon at the 65 million years-old Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary at Gubbio, Italy, their find heralded a paradigm shift in the study of terrestrial evolution. Since the 1980s the discovery and study of asteroid impact ejecta in the oldest well-preserved terrains of Western Australia and South Africa, by Don Lowe, Gary Byerly, Bruce Simonson, Scott Hassler, the author and others, and the documentation of new exposed and buried impact structures in several continents, have led to a resurgence of the idea of the catastrophism theory of Cuvier, previously largely supplanted by the uniformitarian theory of Hutton and Lyell. Several mass extinction of species events are known to have occurred in temporal proximity to large asteroid impacts, global volcanic eruptions and continental splitting. Likely links are observed between asteroid clusters and the 580 Ma acritarch radiation, end-Devonian extinction, end-Triassic extinction and end-Jurassic extinction. New discoveries of ~3.5 – 3.2 Ga-old impact fallout units in South Africa have led Don Lowe and Gary Byerly to propose a protracted prolongation of the Late Heavy Bombardment (~3.95-3.85 Ga) in the Earth-Moon system. Given the difficulty in identifying asteroid impact ejecta units and buried impact structures, it is likely new discoveries of impact signatures are in store, which would further profoundly alter models of terrestrial evolution. .

Large Meteorite Impacts and Planetary Evolution V

Large Meteorite Impacts and Planetary Evolution V PDF Author: Gordon R. Osinski
Publisher: Geological Society of America
ISBN: 0813725186
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
In this volume, the geologic and planetary science communities explore impact events and how they affected the evolution of Earth and other planetary bodies. these papers are the outcome of a conference held every five years.

Earth as an Evolving Planetary System

Earth as an Evolving Planetary System PDF Author: Kent C. Condie
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0123852285
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 593

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Book Description
Earth as an Evolving Planetary System, Second Edition, explores key topics and questions relating to the evolution of the Earth's crust and mantle over the last four billion years. This updated edition features exciting new information on Earth and planetary evolution and examines how all subsystems in our planet—crust, mantle, core, atmosphere, oceans and life—have worked together and changed over time. It synthesizes data from the fields of oceanography, geophysics, planetology, and geochemistry to address Earth's evolution. This volume consists of 10 chapters, including two new ones that deal with the Supercontinent Cycle and on Great Events in Earth history. There are also new and updated sections on Earth's thermal history, planetary volcanism, planetary crusts, the onset of plate tectonics, changing composition of the oceans and atmosphere, and paleoclimatic regimes. In addition, the book now includes new tomographic data tracking plume tails into the deep mantle. This book is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, with a basic knowledge of geology, biology, chemistry, and physics. It also may serve as a reference tool for structural geologists and professionals in related disciplines who want to look at the Earth in a broader perspective. - Kent Condie's corresponding interactive CD, Plate Tectonics and How the Earth Works, can be purchased from Tasa Graphic Arts here: http://www.tasagraphicarts.com/progptearth.html - Two new chapters on the Supercontinent Cycle and on Great Events in Earth history - New and updated sections on Earth's thermal history, planetary volcanism, planetary crusts, the onset of plate tectonics, changing composition of the oceans and atmosphere, and paleoclimatic regimes - Also new in this Second Edition: the lower mantle and the role of the post-perovskite transition, the role of water in the mantle, new tomographic data tracking plume tails into the deep mantle, Euxinia in Proterozoic oceans, The Hadean, A crustal age gap at 2.4-2.2 Ga, and continental growth

Asteroids IV

Asteroids IV PDF Author: Patrick Michel
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816532133
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 946

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Book Description
"More than forty chapters detail our current astronomical, compositional, geological, and geophysical knowledge of asteroids, as well as their unique physical processes and interrelationships with comets and meteorites"--Provided by publisher.

Large Meteorite Impacts and Planetary Evolution VI

Large Meteorite Impacts and Planetary Evolution VI PDF Author: Wolf Uwe Reimold
Publisher: Geological Society of America
ISBN: 081372550X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 644

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Book Description
"This volume contains a sizable suite of contributions dealing with regional impact records (Australia, Sweden), impact craters and impactites, early Archean impacts and geophysical characteristics of impact structures, shock metamorphic investigations, post-impact hydrothermalism, and structural geology and morphometry of impact structures - on Earth and Mars"--

Climate, Fire and Human Evolution

Climate, Fire and Human Evolution PDF Author: Andrew Y. Glikson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 331922512X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
The book outlines principal milestones in the evolution of the atmosphere, oceans and biosphere during the last 4 million years in relation with the evolution from primates to the genus Homo – which uniquely mastered the ignition and transfer of fire. The advent of land plants since about 420 million years ago ensued in flammable carbon-rich biosphere interfaced with an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Born on a flammable Earth surface, under increasingly unstable climates descending from the warmer Pliocene into the deepest ice ages of the Pleistocene, human survival depended on both—biological adaptations and cultural evolution, mastering fire as a necessity. This allowed the genus to increase entropy in nature by orders of magnitude. Gathered around camp fires during long nights for hundreds of thousandth of years, captivated by the flickering life-like dance of the flames, humans developed imagination, insights, cravings, fears, premonitions of death and thereby aspiration for immortality, omniscience, omnipotence and the concept of god. Inherent in pantheism was the reverence of the Earth, its rocks and its living creatures, contrasted by the subsequent rise of monotheistic sky-god creeds which regard Earth as but a corridor to heaven. Once the climate stabilized in the early Holocene, since about ~7000 years-ago production of excess food by Neolithic civilization along the Great River Valleys has allowed human imagination and dreams to express themselves through the construction of monuments to immortality. Further to burning large part of the forests, the discovery of combustion and exhumation of carbon from the Earth’s hundreds of millions of years-old fossil biospheres set the stage for an anthropogenic oxidation event, affecting an abrupt shift in state of the atmosphere-ocean-cryosphere system. The consequent ongoing extinction equals the past five great mass extinctions of species—constituting a geological event horizon in the history of planet Earth.

Terrestrial Impact Structures

Terrestrial Impact Structures PDF Author: Manfred Gottwald
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783399372613
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


The Archaean: Geological and Geochemical Windows into the Early Earth

The Archaean: Geological and Geochemical Windows into the Early Earth PDF Author: Andrew Y. Glikson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319079085
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
Archaean terrains contain a wealth of structural, stratigraphic, textural, mineralogical, geochemical and isotopic features allowing insights into the nature of the early Earth. This book is based on studies during 1964-2007 of Archaean terrains in Australia and to a lesser extent in South Africa and India, as well as on visits to Archaean terrains in Canada, the US and China, as well as petrological and geochemical studies of igneous and sedimentary rock suites from a range of terrains. The book will include a range of photographic and microscopic images, geological sketch maps and diagrams illustrating the lessons derived from field and the laboratory. Also other Archaean terrains are being reviewed. The book is intended for Earth scientists as well as broader intelligent readership.

The Web of Geological Sciences

The Web of Geological Sciences PDF Author: Marion Eugene Bickford
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813725239
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
The web of geological sciences, Special papers 500 and 523, written in celebration of the 125th anniversary of the Geological Society of America.

Asteroids Impacts, Crustal Evolution and Related Mineral Systems with Special Reference to Australia

Asteroids Impacts, Crustal Evolution and Related Mineral Systems with Special Reference to Australia PDF Author: Andrew Y. Glikson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 331974545X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
This book presents a comprehensive overview of Australian impact structures and related mineralization, including a discussion of the significance of many of these structures for crustal evolution. The book focuses in particular on Archaean impact ejecta/fallout units in the Pilbara Craton of Western Australia, large exposed and buried impact structures, and on the geophysical evidence for possible to probable impact structures. Thanks to their long-term geological stability, Precambrian and younger terrains in the Australian continent contain 38 confirmed impact structures and 43 ring and dome structures, many of which constitute possible to probable asteroid impact structures. The impact structures have been the subject of more than half a century of studies and range from several tens of meter-large craters to buried structures larger than 100 km in diameter. Discoveries of impact fallout units in the Pilbara Craton have defined the Pilbara as one of the two best documented terrains where Archaean impact ejecta/fallout deposits are identified, the other terrain being the Kaapvaal Craton in southern Africa. A synthesis of evidence from both cratons indicates periods of large asteroid bombardments during ~3.47 – 2.48 billion years-ago, including peak bombardment about 3.25—3.22 billion years-ago. The latter period coincides with an abrupt transformation of an early Archaean granite-greenstone crust to mid to late Archaean semi-continental crustal regimes, underpinning the significance of heavy asteroid impact events for crustal evolution. Apart from proven impact structures, Australian terrains display a range of circular features, including morphological and drainage rings, circular lakes, volcanic craters, tectonic domes, oval granite bodies, mafic igneous plugs, salt diapirs, and magnetic, gravity and seismic anomalies, many of which are of a likely impact origin. Thermal and hydrothermal processes associated with impact cratering bear important consequences for the formation of mineral deposits, such as Ni at Sudbury, Pb-Zn at Siljan and Kentland. Impact structures may also provide sites for the accumulation of hydrocarbons, whereas in some instances fracturing associated with impact structures allows outward migration of oil and gas.