Bolide impacts and the oxidation state of carbon in the earth's early atmosphere

Details Bolide impacts and the oxidation state of carbon in the earth's early atmosphere Bolide impacts and the oxidation state of carbon in the earth's early atmosphere

May 1990

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1990oleb...20..199k&link_type=abstract

(International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, Meeting, 6th, Prague, Czechoslovakia, July 3-8, 1989) Origins of Lif

Computer Science

68

Atmospheric Composition, Atmospheric Models, Carbon, Photochemical Reactions, Primitive Earth Atmosphere, Atmospheric Chemistry, Boundary Conditions, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide, Hydrogen, Impact Damage, Iron, Iron Oxides, Nitric Oxide, Oxidation, Oxygen, Water

Scientific paper

A one-dimensional photochemical model was used to examine the effect of bolide impacts on the oxidation state of earth's primitive atmosphere. The impact rate should have been high prior to 3.8 Ga before present, based on evidence derived from the moon. Impacts of comets or carbonaceous asteroids should have enhanced the atmospheric CO/CO2 ratio by bringing in CO ice and/or organic carbon that can be oxidized to CO in the impact plume. Ordinary chondritic impactors would contain elemental iron that could have reacted with ambient CO2 to give CO. Nitric oxide (NO) should also have been produced by reaction between ambient CO2 and N2 in the hot impact plumes. High NO concentrations increase the atmospheric CO/CO2 ratio by increasing the rainout rate of oxidized gases. According to the model, atmospheric CO/CO2 ratios of unity or greater are possible during the first several hundred million years of earth's history, provided that dissolved CO was not rapidly oxidized to bicarbonate in the ocean.

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