Comets creating oceans
4 messages in this thread
To all of you out there,
Hi, my name is Shannon Evans. I'm working on a science project
and need some information on this question. Could comets have created
the oceans? I have not had much research on this subject but I was
hoping this would help because maybe one of you have gone over this.
I have found a book called "RAINBOWS, curve balls" but it does not
give enough information. If there is anyone out there who could help
me out or has any ideas on this question please contact me.
The oceans are very large, obviously. It would have taken a lot of comets to
create the oceans. To test whether this hypothesis is correct, you might need
to explain why at some point in Earth's history did so many comets fall, and
why they've stopped filling the oceans in more recent times. I'm sure your
local library can find references to articles on this topic.
I don't know for sure but I had a professor who stated a theory that Iceland
was created by either an impact of a comet or meteor on the spreading center
that Iceland is located on
Hi, Shannon–
Welcome to the forum!
I can easily imagine comets contributing to the oceans, though water released
by vulcanism could easily be sufficient to explain the oceans without help from
comets. The rocks that form the earth have a certain amount of water built
into them, which over eons gets released by volcanoes and such.
One theory of the formation of the planets has it that the original cloud of
gas and dust (the solar nebula) condensed into small rocks (called
"planetesimals", which collided and formed larger rocks, which built still
larger ones, and so on until they built up to planets. At one stage, those
planetesimals must have been a lot like comets (the comets may be leftovers
from this stage?). Thus one might say the earth formed from comets, at least
in some sense, from which it follows that the water of crystallization in the
rocks came from that source also.
Perhaps one can assess the amount of water contributed to the oceans by
later-arriving comets by comparing isotopic ratios (which isotopes of which
elements? I am not sure, but there are only so many isotopes of oxygen and
hydrogen to look at) in the ocean, in deep rocks, and in comets, to whatever
extent these things are known.
–Doug