Science has sought a solution for a billion-year period that has disappeared from Earth's history

Sometimes, we suddenly forget what we are doing, what we are doing. This unpleasant experience makes you feel that the flow of time you live is suddenly a small stretch. But this feeling is nothing compared to our billion-year-old Earth: in Earth's history, there have been 'memoryless' areas of the Earth that lasted for hundreds of millions of years.

It is possible to confirm the existence of these historical gaps on Earth's geological characteristics: archaeologists discovered that two layers of rocks dating from two distant distances lie close together; this gap could be up to 1.2 billion years. This suggests that somehow nature made sediments of this period not appear in the soil.

Science has sought a solution for a billion-year period that has disappeared from Earth's history Picture 1

The Great Unconformity is a void in the Earth's geological history.

These gaps seem to laugh at our attempt to understand the Earth's past, because they are proof that a period of time has disappeared mysteriously. However, scientists can rely on that to learn how to read Earth's memories, as well as how we count the number of tree rings to deduce the age of the giants.

' A big question, covering all, is the difference between a complete sediment and a sediment that has lost several layers due to erosion ,' wrote geologist Rebecca Flowers from the University of Colorado Boulder. ' Another point is that [it helps us] understand the link between phenomena that occur on the surface (such as erosion), processes that take place in the ground, and changes that have long-lasting effects on birth. study, climate or environment . '

Professor Flowers is the new research author published Monday in the journal PNAS. She points out that the new findings involve one of the most known gaps in Earth's history, The Great Unconformity, appearing on many layers of sediment throughout the Earth.

Science has sought a solution for a billion-year period that has disappeared from Earth's history Picture 2

Researcher Rebecca Flowers.

This gap stretched from about 550 million years ago (the period just before complex living organisms began to appear) to over 1 billion years ago (when microorganisms were still 'dominating' the Earth). 

Scientists hypothesize that the fossils during this period were eroded due to the effects of the Earth's time of almost total freezing. 

However, in the new report, Ms. Flowers and her colleagues made a new opinion about the formation of historical gaps: this is a feature of tectonic plates in each region, not due to any global phenomenon. . They concluded so when analyzing granite fossils at Mount Pikes, Colorado. This is not the only place Ms. Flowers gets her research sample.

' We work in many other archaeological areas across North America, including the Grand Canyon, perhaps the most famous place where the Great Rift appears. We plan to visit new archaeological sites on other continents, '' Flowers said.

' The purpose of this is to determine whether a global phenomenon, as many scientists have assumed, creates erosion leading to the emergence of the Great Gap, or whether there are multiple Deviations. appear at different times, different places, and different reasons . '

Science has sought a solution for a billion-year period that has disappeared from Earth's history Picture 3

Once upon a time, the Earth looked like this.

To solve this problem, the team of crystalline and crystalline research aims to reconstruct the thermal history (the technique of dating layers) of sedimentary layers. The results showed that the older sediment layer eroded before the Earth entered the first ice age, which indicates that the Great Gap did not occur due to the impact of the erosion caused by the ice.

The results also led researchers to suspect the previous hypothesis, which suggested that erosion along with the formation of the Great Gap caused nutrients to fill the surface of the Earth, creating an explosion. Cambrian period - the time when complex living things appeared at 541 million years ago.

' If erosion occurred a few hundred million years before the Cambrian explosion, it would mean that these two phenomena, the explosion of life and the Great Devour erosion, were unrelated ,' Ms. Flowers explained. 'Our research results show that at the Peak of Pikes, the erosion marks that made up the Rift occurred several hundred million years before the Cambrian boom '.

The team believes that geological activity related to the formation and separation of the Rodinia supercontinent caused the Great Gap at Mount Pikes to appear. However, the nature of the Great Gap is still unknown - the memory gap in Earth's history. It takes more research on the other distances scattered on Earth to be able to draw a full picture of this lost time.