Related papers: New Indivisible Geoscience Paradigm
Planets of 1-4 times Earth's size on orbits shorter than 100 days exist around 30-50% of all Sun-like stars. In fact, the Solar System is particularly outstanding in its lack of "hot super-Earths" (or "mini-Neptunes"). These planets -- or…
Earth and Titan are two planetary bodies formed far from each other. Nevertheless the chemical composition of their atmospheres exhibits common indications of being produced by the accretion, plus ulterior in-situ processing of cometary…
By plotting empirical chemical element abundances on Earth relative to the Sun and normalized to silicon versus their first ionization potentials, we confirm the existence of a correlation reported earlier. To explain this, we develop a…
Carbonaceous chondrites are some of the most primitive meteorites and derive from planetesimals that formed a few million years after the beginning of the solar system. Here, using new and previously published Cr, Ti, and Te isotopic data,…
The inner structure of the earth is still a topic of discussion. Seismic measurements showed a structure of solid, liquid, solid which describes the mantle, outer core and inner core with the inner core in the center. The analysis of…
Two fundamentally different processes of rocky planet formation exist, but it is unclear which one built the terrestrial planets of the solar system. Either they formed by collisions among planetary embryos from the inner solar system, or…
Recent studies have unequivocally proven the existence of clouds in super-Earth atmospheres (Kreidberg et al. 2014). Here we provide a theoretical context for the formation of super-Earth clouds by determining which condensates are likely…
We explore here the idea, reminiscent in some respect of Von Weizsacker's (1944) and Alfven's (1976) outmoded cosmogonies, that long-lived vortices in a turbulent protoplanetary nebula can capture large amount of solid particles and…
Mercury's high uncompressed mass density suggests that the planet is largely composed of iron, either bound within metal (mainly Fe-Ni), or iron sulfide. Recent results from the MESSENGER mission to Mercury imply a low temperature history…
We review some basic issues of the life-prescribed development of the Earth's system and the Earth's atmosphere and discourse the unity of Earth's type of life in physical and transcendental divisions. In physical division, we exemplify and…
Asteroids and meteorites provide key evidence on the formation of planetesimals in the Solar System. Asteroids are traditionally thought to form in a bottom-up process by coagulation within a population of initially km-scale planetesimals.…
Efforts to understand unusual weather or abrupt changes in climate have been plagued by deficiencies of the standard solar model (SSM). While it assumes that our primary source of energy began as a homogeneous ball of hydrogen (H) with a…
We determined the metal/silicate partition coefficients of hydrogen and carbon, DH and DC, simultaneously under typical conditions of Earth's core formation. Experiments demonstrate that both DH and DC diminish in the presence of carbon and…
In this chapter we review the astrophysical origins of Earth's carbon, starting from the products of the Big Bang and culminating with the Earth's formation. We review the measured compositions of different primitive objects including…
The presence of highly siderophile elements in Earth's mantle indicates that a small percentage of Earth's mass was delivered after the last giant impact in a stage of 'late accretion.' There is ongoing debate about the nature of…
In the solar system, oldhamite (CaS) is generally considered to be formed by the condensation of solar nebula gas. Enstatite chondrites, one of the most important repositories of oldhamite, are believed to be the representative of the…
The bulk chemical compositions of planets are uncertain, even for major elements such as Mg and Si. This is due to the fact that the samples available for study all originate from relatively shallow depths. Comparison of the stable isotope…
After describing all the contradictions associated with the current Plate Tectonics theory, this paper proposes a model where a single cause can explain all geophysical and geological phenomena. The source of the Earth's activity lies in…
Outgassing is a central process during the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets and their atmospheres both within and beyond the solar system. Although terrestrial planets' early atmospheres likely form via outgassing during…
The most abundant matrix minerals in chondritic meteorites, hydrated phyllosilicates and ferrous olivine crystals, formed predominantly in asteroids during fluid-assisted metamorphism. We infer that they formed from minerals present in…