[Rockhounds] Meteorite Bombardment Likely Created the Oldest Rocks on Earth

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

Scientists think rocks from space
<https://www.space.com/33695-thousands-meteorites-litter-earth-unpredictable-collisions.html>
 may be responsible for the very oldest rocks on Earth.

That's according to new research published today (Aug. 13), which argues
that meteorite bombardment is the most likely way to explain the
temperature and pressure conditions under which 4.02-billion-year-old
Canadian rocks formed.

"We believe that these rocks may be the only surviving remnants of a
barrage of extraterrestrial impacts which characterized the first 600
million years of Earth's history," lead study author Tim Johnson, a
geologist at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, said in a statement
<https://www.eurekalert.org/emb_releases/2018-08/gc-mbl081018.php> released
by the hosts of the Goldschmidt conference being held Aug. 12 through 17 in
Boston, where the research is being presented.
https://www.space.com/41468-meteorite-bombardment-created-oldest-earth-rocks.html