Major segment of the Earth's surface has gone missing, and researchers have pinpointed its location
In a groundbreaking discovery, scientists have proposed that a significant chunk of the Earth's crust, approximately one billion cubic kilometers (200 million cubic miles), has vanished. This theory, first published on 18th December 2023, suggests that severe glacial erosion during a period known as "Snowball Earth" could be the culprit.
During Snowball Earth, almost the whole planet was covered with ice. The glaciers that eroded the sedimentary rocks also washed them out to sea, leaving a gap in the geological record known as "The Great Unconformity". This phenomenon, first observed in 1869 at the Grand Canyon in Arizona, marks a sharp change in the age of rocks due to the erosion of previous rock layers.
The missing Earth's crust is now found as sediment deposits in regions surrounding ancient glaciated areas. Evidence presented shows that crystals from that era have hafnium and oxygen isotopes, which are consistent with being eroded from old rock and deposited at low temperatures.
The study estimated that a global average of 3-5 kilometres (2-3 miles) of rock was stripped away due to glacial erosion. This erosion before the Phanerozoic era, as proposed by the theory, could explain why there are many asteroid craters less than 700 million years old and only two older than that.
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