Huge Asteroids Brought Gold to Infant Earth, Study Says

National Geographic News ^ | December 9, 2010 | Brian Handwerk

[SunkenCiv]

..Scientists have long known that there's a mysterious amount of siderophile ("iron-loving") metals in Earth's mantle. Such metals, including gold, tend to affiliate with iron in their liquid forms.

The best explanation has been that some sort of space object brought the elements to the planet just after it formed its core, but the exact nature of the impactor has been a matter of debate.

Based on computer simulations, the new study says that a small number of enormous, random impacts roughly 4.5 billion years ago are the sources of Earth's iron-loving materials.

These impactors were rocky objects left over from our solar system's planet-formation phase. The largest one that hit Earth was roughly the size of Pluto -- up to 2,000 miles (3,220 kilometers) wide, the study suggests.

And young Earth wasn't the only recipient: Cataclysmic collisions delivered iron-loving metals to the moon and Mars around the same time, the study authors say. What's more, the impacts may have been the source of water on the moon...

Moon rocks brought back during the Apollo missions led to the now widely accepted theory that the moon formed when a Mars-size object crashed into early Earth.

Energy from the impact would have spurred the still forming Earth to develop its mostly iron core. When this happened, iron-loving metals should have followed molten iron down from the planet's mantle and into the core.

But we know that gold and other iron-lovers are found in modest abundances in Earth's mantle.

Using a mathematical approach called Monte Carlo analysis, Bottke's team calculates that iron-loving metals were delivered in a limited number of massive impacts that just happened to miss the moon...

[America_Right]

Immanuel Velikovsky was always a fave of mine. My mom handed me one of his books when I was in Jr. High. It was on.

Yeah, he gets more impressive as time goes on and more of his "crackpot" theories get proven right. Brilliant!

I had an engineer buddy of mine work on that time machine idea, but he couldn't power it. He muttered something about needing about 10 suns to power it and threw it in his recycle bin. Oh, well... :)

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks bhf.

[SunkenCiv]

"Emerging from a particularly credulous Southern California culture, Nancy and Ronald Reagan relied on an astrologer in private and public matters -- unknown to the voting public. Some portion of the decision-making that influences the future of our civilization is plainly in the hands of charlatans." -- Carl Sagan

Sagan also blasted that Reagan made Carter look like Cardinal Richelieu, opposed SDI, and nearly singlehandedly gave birth to the global warming movement.

[null and void]

Element 79, by Fred Hoyle 1967...

[April Lexington]

Merry Christmas, TC! Hope Santa is good to you this year!

Ape Lex

[America_Right]

Sagan also blasted that Reagan made Carter look like Cardinal Richelieu, opposed SDI, and nearly singlehandedly gave birth to the global warming movement.

Give me a break, I was a little kid. Reagan (first) got elected when I was 10! I remember getting mad at my mom for voting for Anderson. I know Carl was a whacky lib, but most academics are.

Oh, by the way, Reagan and Thatcher actually did kinda give birth to the global warming thing. They were trying to get the libs to get on board with nuke power. Maggie was VERY vocal about it.

[The Comedian]

Ammo?! Thanks Santa!!

Merry Christmas bro!

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[April Lexington]

Mmmm.....ammo! And Scotch! The Ol Elf was good this year!

[The Comedian]

Mmmm.....ammo! And Scotch! The Ol Elf was good this year!

Yeah! He left the same stuff for me!

Sure am glad St. Nick ain't a liberal teetotaler.

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[Farmer Dean]

My wife gave me .308 Gold Medal.

[The Comedian]

My wife gave me .308 Gold Medal.

Now *that's* true love!

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[SunkenCiv]

Nope, no connection there. Groups in the US like the Abalone Alliance and Greenpeace were on a rampage during the 1970s and 1980s against nuclear fission, and similar groups were doing the same thing in Europe. Thatcher and Reagan's defense was not only needed, but it worked. Germany just gave up on it, France's fast breeder program was brought into disrepute. Sci-fi author Ray Bradbury was vocal in his defense of nuclear energy (so was Sagan).

Reagan's famed lampoon of the global warming hoax is, well, famed:

"I have flown twice over Mount St. Helens. I'm not a scientist and I don't know the figures, but I have a suspicion that one little mountain out there, in these last several months, has probably released more sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere than has been released in the last ten years of automobile driving or things of that kind." -- quoted in Time magazine, October 20, 1980.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks null and void.

http://pulpaweek.blogspot.com/2010/06/element-79-by-fred-hoyle.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Element_79_(book)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Element_79

[America_Right]

Didn’t know all that. However, Thatcher was FOR SURE pushing the AGW thing just to get the greenies to shut up. From what I have read, she was the mother of it (well, the gov’t role in it, anyway). I just figured that since her and Ronny were so tight, that he was helping her with it somehow... I am seriously glad you showed me I was wrong about that!!!