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The Late Heavy Bombardment

The Late Heavy Bombardment Heavily cratered surfaces on the Moon, Mars, and Mercury show that the terrestrial planets were battered by an intense bombardment during their first billion years or more, but the timing, sources, and dynamical implications of these impacts are controversial. The Late Heavy Bombardment refers to impact events that occurred after stabilization of the planetary lithospheres such that they could be preserved as craters and basins. Lunar melt rocks and meteorite shock ages point toward a discrete episode of elevated impact flux between 3.5 and 4.04.2 Ga, and a relative quiescence between 4.04.2 and 4.4 Ga. Evidence from Precambrian impact spherule layers suggests that a long-lived tail of terrestrial impactors lasted to 2.02.5 Ga. Dynamical models that include populations residual from primary accretion and destabilized by giant planet migration can potentially account for the available observations, although all have pros and cons. The most parsimonious solution to match constraints is a hybrid model with discrete early, post-accretion and later, planetary instabilitydriven populations of impactors. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences Annual Reviews

The Late Heavy Bombardment

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Publisher
Annual Reviews
Copyright
Copyright 2017 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
ISSN
0084-6597
eISSN
1545-4495
DOI
10.1146/annurev-earth-063016-020131
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Heavily cratered surfaces on the Moon, Mars, and Mercury show that the terrestrial planets were battered by an intense bombardment during their first billion years or more, but the timing, sources, and dynamical implications of these impacts are controversial. The Late Heavy Bombardment refers to impact events that occurred after stabilization of the planetary lithospheres such that they could be preserved as craters and basins. Lunar melt rocks and meteorite shock ages point toward a discrete episode of elevated impact flux between 3.5 and 4.04.2 Ga, and a relative quiescence between 4.04.2 and 4.4 Ga. Evidence from Precambrian impact spherule layers suggests that a long-lived tail of terrestrial impactors lasted to 2.02.5 Ga. Dynamical models that include populations residual from primary accretion and destabilized by giant planet migration can potentially account for the available observations, although all have pros and cons. The most parsimonious solution to match constraints is a hybrid model with discrete early, post-accretion and later, planetary instabilitydriven populations of impactors.

Journal

Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences – Annual Reviews

Published: Aug 30, 2017

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