Researchers believe that billions of years ago our planet collided with an object the size of Mars, as a result of which mysterious clumps appeared in its depths.
The history of our planet goes back more than 4.5 billion years, and scientists have been trying for centuries to shed light on the events that influenced the formation of our planet and life on it. Recently, there is growing evidence that a powerful collision of the Earth with an object the size of Mars, called Theia, which occurred at the very beginning of our planet, played an important role in its formation, writes Futurism.
In a new study, scientists have found evidence that the collision of giants may have formed “mysterious clumps” that are buried deep within the Earth today. Researchers are also beginning to suspect that these “buried blobs” may have played a key role in the emergence of plate tectonics – geological processes that have become integral to the formation of life on our planet. Moreover, scientists suspect that it is these mysterious clots that cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions today.
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According to the new study’s co-author, Caltech geologist Qian Yuan, he and his team drew parallels between the mysterious blobs formed after the Earth-Theia collision and modern plate tectonics, which ultimately shaped the conditions that allowed life to flourish on our planet billions of years later. .
Now the team claims that a “giant planetary impact” not only caused the formation of Earth’s natural satellite, the Moon, but also determined the original conditions of our planet.
In the study, scientists examined existing theories regarding the mysterious clumps hidden deep in the Earth’s mantle, which are made of materials different from their surroundings, and how they first appeared.
About 200 million years after the collision, the mysterious clumps are thought to have generated “strong mantle plumes” that eventually triggered the process of subduction, with plates of the Earth’s crust falling beneath other plates.
The study authors believe their work may help explain the origins of the oldest minerals ever discovered on Earth, which the team believes resulted from subduction more than 4 billion years ago.
However, some scientists are still skeptical. So, according to University of Maryland geologist Muckle Brown, we need to understand that science simply doesn’t have enough evidence to shed light on what happened on the early Earth billions of years ago.
Previously Focus wrote that a catastrophe 4.5 billion years ago gave birth to the Moon: scientists showed how everything happened.
