Did meteor collisions help our human species evolve like today?

About 56 million years ago, Earth experienced the most significant event in its 4.5 billion year history. Temperatures reach 8 ° C and the ice begins to melt throughout the planet.

During this warming period, for the first time, "true" primates have emerged and established development that led to human evolution. Today, geologists say they have found evidence for the assumption that a comet collision might have triggered this important event.

About 56 million years ago, about 10 million years after the dinosaurs went extinct, something triggered a period of warming.

Known as the Earth-warming period (Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum - PETM) , it marked the end of the Co-century and began the Tan Tan period, lasting up to about 33.9 million. last year.

Geologists say they have found evidence for the hypothesis that a comet collision has affected human evolution.

Many experts believe that the PETM event is an ancient event most similar to the current climate change phenomenon , because it shows that the level of carbon dioxide in the air increases rapidly. Global temperatures increase from 5 - 8 ° C.

At that time, the temperature of the sea surface in the tropics rises to as high as 35 ° C and the sea floor temperature will be 10 ° C higher than the present. The ocean is acidified, the ice in the two poles melts, the forests will burn and life evolves to adapt to new conditions.

Many terrestrial mammals are pushed out of the forest to vast prairies, allowing them to grow larger and form the animals that are the ancestors of some modern species such as senses, horses and pigs. , camels and hippos.

The ancient ancestors of whales appeared to dominate the sea at this time, and the placenta mammals appear with the body and the brain larger than any previous species.

"True" primates also evolve over time, with the ability to handle objects and branches with their arms and legs. Some things make the monkey's society many millions of years later.

The PETM event is really important to Earth's history, but what really triggers it is still one of the greatest geological mysteries.

Currently, a group of geologists thinks the impact of a small comet may have led to this global warming event, saying there is evidence on the East Coast of the United States.

Indeed, an asteroid collision has pushed the dinosaurs to extinction, 10 million years later, a similar event may have begun for the evolution of countless species of animals (animals and plants preferred). heat).

After the extinction of dinosaurs, 10 million years later, a similar event may have begun for the evolution of countless species.

At the annual meeting of the American Geological Society in Colorado last week, lead researcher from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, Mr. Morgan Schaller and his team presented two papers describing the discovery of particles. Strange "spherical" glass in the 8th sedimentary layer is associated with the beginning of PETM.

They say these spherical glass particles are found in three locations in the Atlantic coastal plain, often involving phenomena of outer space colliding with the Earth. And these particles have been in the ground for decades.

As Paul Voosen explains to Science magazine:

"Spherical particles that look like tiny Tektites meteorites, are formed when meteors or comets collide with the Earth at high speed.

This is a surprise for the group: these sediments have been studied many times before. The spherical particles may have been mixed with the geology to create tiny fossils of organisms that we often find. "

These particles are often associated with volcanic eruptions, which is one of the leading hypotheses for the question of what caused PETM.

But the team said that the amount of water contained in these tiny micro- Tektites is less than 0.03%, which is much lower than volcanic Tektites . And they also contain quartz crystals that are characteristic of heat effects.

They also found that three of the sediment cores of the PETM era contained large coal seams directly above Tekkites, showing that immediately after the collision there was fire immediately and burned everything.

Atlantic coastal plain.

"We deduce that abnormal heating is a result of the impact of a meteorite or comet that causes widespread wildfires, as evidenced by previous literature on the Aging - Mercury era worldwide. ", they concluded in an article.
This finding has not yet been given adequate attention, with many arguments at the meeting, with some geologists listening to evidence of the comet's impact while others continue to be skeptical.

"It's really a great discovery," Birger Schmitz, a geologist from Lund University in Sweden, told Voosen. "The data said it all."

Meanwhile, Jerry Dickens, an oceanographer at Rice University in Houston, Texas, said he did not suspect that spherical particles stemmed from collisions or coal seams arising from forest fires, but he said that spherical particles and coal seams can also be found in all sediments of the PETM period, not just found at the beginning.

Currently, the research group needs to explain why such a small collision, estimated at several kilometers, could begin to cause wide-area warming. But there is a possibility that the collision took place in a large "carbon field" , such as natural oil fields.

Research has yet to be recognized, but if researchers find more evidence for their hypothesis, it means that not only one but two collisions have created the evolution of human ancestors. .