Impact melting of frozen oceans on the early Earth: implications for the origin of life - PubMed (original) (raw)

Impact melting of frozen oceans on the early Earth: implications for the origin of life

J L Bada et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1994 Feb.

Abstract

Without sufficient greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the early Earth would have become a permanently frozen planet because the young Sun was less luminous than it is today. Several resolutions to this faint young Sun-frozen Earth paradox have been proposed, with an atmosphere rich in CO2 being the one generally favored. However, these models assume that there were no mechanisms for melting a once frozen ocean. Here we show that bolide impacts between about 3.6 and 4.0 billion years ago could have episodically melted an ice-covered early ocean. Thaw-freeze cycles associated with bolide impacts could have been important for the initiation of abiotic reactions that gave rise to the first living organisms.

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