Geologists have discovered the earliest evidence of a meteor collision with Earth: tiny fragments of melted rock that showered down on our planet 3.48 billion years ago.
Scientists in Australia have unearthed 3.48 billion-year-old rock fragments that may be the earliest evidence of a meteorite crashing into Earth.
Researchers presented this discovery, which has not been peer-reviewed, at the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas last week. In a summary of their results , the scientists concluded that the spherules, which they drilled up from a group of volcanic and sedimentary rocks called the Dresser Formation of the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia, are"the oldest evidence of a potential bolide impact in the geologic record of Earth.
"This new research documents ejecta in slightly older rocks, which have an age of 3.48 billion years old ," Chris Yakymchuk , a geologist at the University of Waterloo in Canada who was not involved in the research, told Live Science in an email. The results appear robust, he said, but access to the entire dataset would be necessary to confirm their significance.
Evidence of meteor collisions with Earth is difficult to find and often controversial. Plate tectonics and erosion wear down the planet's crust and can erase traces of ancient strikes, such as impact craters. A 2012 study claiming to have uncovered the world's oldest meteor crater triggered a heated debate among scientists. But when geological forces wipe out a crater, spherules are sometimes all that's left of the event.
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