Geologists have found out: the continents on Earth arose due to the fall of an asteroid

The first continents of the Earth arose about 3.6 million years ago, presumably as a result of a giant asteroid falling on the planet. The same catastrophe led to the launch of the global circulation of rocks in the bowels of the Earth. These conclusions were reached by geologists from Australia and the United States, who studied zircon crystals, the journal reports. Nature.

“We have studied zircon crystals from the oldest rocks of the earth’s crust occurring in the Pilbara region in western Australia,” the press service of Curtin University in Perth (Australia) quotes Tim Johnson, one of the University’s researchers. According to the scientist, the proportions of isotopes in zircons “indicate that the crustal rocks were partially melted down as a result of the fall of a giant celestial body to Earth about 3.6 billion years ago.”

The discovery confirms one of the widespread versions of the origin of continents and the beginning of the movement of lithospheric plates. According to this version, the initiator of the formation of continents was the split of the lithosphere, which occurred about 3.6-3.8 billion years ago. The analysis carried out by scientists from Perth points to the probable cause of such a split. There is also an alternative version associated with violent volcanic activity.

Recall that the relief of the Earth is formed by lithospheric plates – fragments of the earth’s crust that are in motion relative to each other, under which lies a semi-liquid mantle and a molten metal core. At the same time, there is no circulation of lithospheric plates, for example, on Venus, the planet closest to the Earth in terms of parameters of the solar system.