An Impact that Impacted the Earth

Asteroids are always thought to be destructive and cause several organisms to go extinct. On December 17, 2007, it was proclaimed that scientists suggested an engrossing theory that contradicts this original thought. According to many geologists, there was a period of time named the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event in the Middle Ordovician period (between 488 and 444 million years ago) where several new animal species suddenly evolved on Earth. Also at this time, there seemed to have been a series of heavy asteroids that collided with the Earth. Even though Birger Schmitz and his colleagues from the University of Lund, Sweden knew of the theory explaining dinosaurs dying off from an asteroid, they strongly support the idea that there was a critical asteroid collision in the solar system 470 million years ago. This impact might have caused the boom in Earth’s biodiversity during Earth's early years of life. After this hit, the asteroid blew into several small pieces. The debris created after the crash was inclined to crash into the Earth 10 to 30 million years after that collision. Schmitz and his team have found evidence of prevalent collisions from that time in the rocks of Earth. Even today, Earth is being bombarded with the smaller debris from that catastrophic event. I really hope all the larger asteroids hit the Earth between the 470 million years to when humans began to evolve! Anyway, the team went to Baltic Scandinavia and China to search for fossils in rocks of that era. They found them in extraterrestrial chromite (a brownish black mineral ore) and osmium isotopes (metallic white, crystalline elements). An extraordinary outburst of diversity of marine invertebrates called brachiopods was seen in the discovered rock from around the collision time. Paleontologist Spenser Lucas feels that Schmitz’s ideas are extremely probable, but still believes more evaluation is needed to prove this theory true. Last year, in science class, we learned that a vital change or the destruction of an environment or habitat can cause new niches to develop and grow. This is why I feel Schmitz and his colleagues are going on the right track with their enlightening theory.

To learn more about this new theory, check out this Web site (this is also where the photograph was found):

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/12/17/asteroid-impact-evolution.html