Asteroid impact 3.2 billion years ago "aided" life

[RonO]

https://phys.org/news/2024-10-giant-meteorite-impact-billion-years.html

An asteroid 200 times larger than the one that may have caused the
extinction of the dinosaurs hit the earth 3.26 million years ago. It
supposedly boiled off the surface water of the ocean, heated the
atmosphere and would have shut down photosynthesis. It also mixed up
the ocean water forcing mixing of deep iron rich water with iron poor
surface water.

The article claims that this aided life. It would have been a boon to
oxygen generating photosynthesis that uses iron in bacterial chlorophyll.

What should be of interest to everyone is how this explains the results
of the recent LUCA research.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-024-02461-1

Last July this article was put up on TO. They used genes that may have
duplicated before the last common ancestor of extant life existed to
estimate that LUCA likely existed around 4.2 billion years ago. It
would have meant that there were sophisticated lifeforms with the
universal genetic code existing soon after the earth cooled enough to
have liquid water. One other conclusion was that LUCA likely existed
with many other lineages of life that had been evolving the genetic code
to the extent that it had achieved in LUCA. The evidence indicated that
the LUCA may have evolved from chemotrophes, but may have not been a
chemotrophe (it had genes needed for photosynthesis). Apparently, the
researchers thought that chemotrhophes reevolved in both Archaea and
eubacteria. Around 3.2 billion years ago there seems to have been a
mass extinction of existing life forms and only two lineages derived
from LUCA survived to produce all the extant lifeforms on earth. This
Asteroid hit at around the right time to have caused this mass
extinction that nearly ended life on this planet.

Figure one of the Nature article indicates that around 3.2 billion years
ago only one lineage of Eubacteria and one lineage of Archaea survived
to subsequently diverge into what we have today. I don't think that the
Asteroid impact "aided" life, but it did reduce the possibilities that
life had, and made the evolution of extant lifeforms possible including
us. Without that asteroid impact life may have evolved very differently
than it did.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Post by RonO
https://phys.org/news/2024-10-giant-meteorite-impact-billion-years.html
An asteroid 200 times larger than the one that may have caused the
extinction of the dinosaurs hit the earth 3.26 million years ago.  It
supposedly boiled off the surface water of the ocean, heated the
atmosphere and would have shut down photosynthesis.  It also mixed up
the ocean water forcing mixing of deep iron rich water with iron poor
surface water.
The article claims that this aided life.  It would have been a boon to
oxygen generating photosynthesis that uses iron in bacterial chlorophyll.
What should be of interest to everyone is how this explains the results
of the recent LUCA research.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-024-02461-1
Last July this article was put up on TO.  They used genes that may have
duplicated before the last common ancestor of extant life existed to
estimate that LUCA likely existed around 4.2 billion years ago.  It
would have meant that there were sophisticated lifeforms with the
universal genetic code existing soon after the earth cooled enough to
have liquid water.  One other conclusion was that LUCA likely existed
with many other lineages of life that had been evolving the genetic code
to the extent that it had achieved in LUCA.  The evidence indicated that
the LUCA may have evolved from chemotrophes, but may have not been a
chemotrophe (it had genes needed for photosynthesis).  Apparently, the
researchers thought that chemotrhophes reevolved in both Archaea and
eubacteria.  Around 3.2 billion years ago there seems to have been a
mass extinction of existing life forms and only two lineages derived
from LUCA survived to produce all the extant lifeforms on earth.  This
Asteroid hit at around the right time to have caused this mass
extinction that nearly ended life on this planet.
Figure one of the Nature article indicates that around 3.2 billion years
ago only one lineage of Eubacteria and one lineage of Archaea survived
to subsequently diverge into what we have today.  I don't think that the
Asteroid impact "aided" life, but it did reduce the possibilities that
life had, and made the evolution of extant lifeforms possible including
us.  Without that asteroid impact life may have evolved very differently
than it did.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/10/241021170403.htm

ScienceDaily's take on the asteroid impact.

The 3.26 billion year old rocks in the study are found in South Africa.
Luskin got his PhD in South Africa working on rocks a little less than 3
billion years old. Luskin is a coauthor of the current Teach ID scam
propaganda that claims that the ID perps have a scientific theory of ID
that can be taught in the public schools, that the Kitzmiller decision
was wrong, and that even though ID was found to be no science worth
teaching in federal court that it is still legal to teach the junk in
the public schools outside of Dover. Luskin is also the ID perp that
led the latest bait and switch scam recently on the West Virginia rubes
that believed his bogus propaganda, and told them not to teach the junk
in their public schools after they passed legislation that would allow
teaching the ID claptrap.

Ron Okimoto