Geochemists challenge key theory regarding Earth's formation
May 1, 2008
Working with colleagues from NASA, a Florida State University researcher has published a paper that calls into question three decades of conventional wisdom regarding some of the physical processes that helped shape the Earth as we know it today.
Munir Humayun, an associate professor in FSU’s Department of Geological Sciences and a researcher at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, co-authored a paper, “Partitioning of Palladium at High Pressures and Temperatures During Core Formation,” that was recently published in the peer-reviewed science journal Nature Geoscience. The paper provides a direct challenge to the popular “late veneer hypothesis,” a theory which suggests that all of our water, as well as several so-called “iron-loving” elements, were added to the Earth late in its formation by impacts with icy comets, meteorites and other passing objects.
“For 30 years, the late-veneer hypothesis has been the dominant paradigm for understanding Earth’s early history, and our ultimate origins,” Humayun said. “Now, with our latest research, we’re suggesting that the late-veneer hypothesis may not be the only way of explaining the presence of certain elements in the Earth’s crust and mantle.”
To illustrate his point, Humayun points to what is known about the Earth’s composition.
“We know that the Earth has an iron-rich core that accounts for about one-third of its total mass,” he said. “Surrounding this core is a rocky mantle that accounts for most of the remaining two-thirds,” with the thin crust of the Earth’s surface making up the rest.
“According to the late-veneer hypothesis, most of the original iron-loving, or siderophile, elements” -- those elements such as gold, platinum, palladium and iridium that bond most readily with iron -- “would have been drawn down to the core over tens of millions of years and thereby removed from the Earth’s crust and mantle. The amounts of siderophile elements that we see today, then, would have been supplied after the core was formed by later meteorite bombardment. This bombardment also would have brought in water, carbon and other materials essential for life, the oceans and the atmosphere.”
To test the hypothesis, Humayun and his NASA colleagues -- Kevin Righter and Lisa Danielson -- conducted experiments at Johnson Space Center in Houston and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee. At the Johnson Space Center, Righter and Danielson used a massive 880-ton press to expose samples of rock containing palladium -- a metal commonly used in catalytic converters -- to extremes of heat and temperature equal to those found more than 300 miles inside the Earth. The samples were then brought to the magnet lab, where Humayun used a highly sensitive analytical tool known as an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer, or ICP-MS, to measure the distribution of palladium within the sample.
“At the highest pressures and temperatures, our experiments found palladium in the same relative proportions between rock and metal as is observed in the natural world,” Humayun said. “Put another way, the distribution of palladium and other siderophile elements in the Earth’s mantle can be explained by means other than millions of years of meteorite bombardment.”
The potential ramifications of his team’s research are significant, Humayun said.
“This work will have important consequences for geologists’ thinking about core formation, the core’s present relation to the mantle, and the bombardment history of the early Earth,” he said. “It also could lead us to rethink the origins of life on our planet.”
Source: Florida State University
Nov 05, 2009 |
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Ground pins are installed after about 1000 years of growth by pouring them into place on the spheres cymatic/geometric triangle tips. Did you not ever wonder why Chicago is windy?? The salts removed in the line going to the ground pin are usually doing there job slowing down the grid energy going to the ground pin,but with the salts removed,that crystal cannot store the grid energy for a measured bleed off through the night.
So grid men like me will eventually get our way and no more salts or flow metals or grid pins will be mined from this earth.
Please send your best boys for a grid science lesson if you choose,as that is what is needed.
You boys understand nothing about that grid by design,and cause damage everywhere.
And then theres the global warming fiasco and your insistence on jet setting everywhere and perturbing our oxygen balance and destroyng our O3 shield at the 48 and 96 thou rings that hold the gases on our planet.
You boys need light frequency lessons and will only pooh pooh anything from us grid science men as just quacks and we think the same of you boys,I assure you!!
When we finally set you boys out of those birds and on to fast trains everywhere ran by hydrogen fueled turbines,and task the power plants with the same process,that uses light frequency to propagate the hydrogen just as the planetary spin speeds propagate gases or field processes,maybe then you boys might wake from your stupor,imposed on you by others who have a very specific interest in doing so. Ta ,Ta boys for now.
And so my return statement is "What has happened to this place" Morons,MOrons,Morons.
I see you had nothing to submit of any import,but you throw darts at old "papas" that are "The" science men of this and other planet spheres who really do understand something your"FAV" Phd. Idiot does not. Go home and sulk little boy,you really do not want to task against "Old Papa" on science facts,he just loves to beat you severely and make the NSA idiots just try and come after him,cuz they just might be beat with a bipp or two if they get anywhere near me,we really do havew HD process that will make folks have the runs ,if necessary,and at least two diseases,and sometimes ,we let you pick.
And actually,I unfortunately had to give up chocolate,as asssholes from the Maalite contingent beat up some of my carbohydrate bags and Im waiting for some young fresh ones to be stolen and sewed into place.Maybe ,if you are close to Michigan where I live,you could be a donor,and you dont even have to give permission,as I have priority,"AS PAPA"