Ancient rocks from Greenland have shown that the elements necessary for the evolution of life did not come to Earth until very late in the planet’s formation – much later than previously thought.
An international team of geologists – led by the University of Cologne and involving UNSW scientists – have published important new findings about the origin of oceans and life on Earth: they have found evidence that a large proportion of the elements that are essential to the formation of oceans and life – such as water, carbon and nitrogen – only came to Earth very late in its history.
Many scientists previously believed that these elements had already been there at the beginning of our planet’s formation. However, the geological investigations published in prestigious journal Nature today have shown that most of the water in fact only came to Earth when its formation was almost complete.
Volatile elements such as water originate from asteroids, the planetary building blocks that formed in the outer solar system. There has been a lot of discussion and controversy in the scientific community around when precisely these building blocks came to Earth.
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