Earth Sciences: Year In Review 1994


The astronomical display produced in July 1994 by the predicted explosive collisions of a string of fragments from a shattered comet with the atmosphere of Jupiter (see ASTRONOMY) ranked as the most spectacular planetary event of the year. It also drew attention to the role of asteroid and comet impacts in the Earth’s history. The Jovian impacts followed by a few months a major scientific conference in Houston, Texas, devoted to the events associated with the boundary between the Cretaceous (K) and Tertiary (T) geologic periods, 65 million years ago, when dinosaurs and many other species became extinct. It was 15 years earlier that the U.S. physicist Luis Alvarez and his geologist son, Walter Alvarez, had proposed that the extinctions were the result of climatic disruptions caused by the impact of a massive asteroid or comet at the end of the Cretaceous. The initial evidence was an increased concentration of the trace element iridium (rare in asteroids but even rarer on Earth) discovered in a thin layer of sediment in rocks delineating the K-T boundary--an anomaly that proved to be global in extent.

The impact proposal was hotly debated because the idea that a catastrophic event could cause profound changes in the geologic record and the course of evolution is opposed to the venerable geologic doctrine of uniformitarianism--the idea that geologic changes and evolution occurred gradually through a progression of processes similar to those seen to be acting at present. Scientific doctrine is not easily overturned, but many earth scientists were converted following the discovery and investigation since 1992 of a giant 65 million-year-old impact crater, at least 180 km and perhaps 300 km in diameter (1 km is about 0.62 mi), at Chicxulub in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Converts stretched the doctrine of uniformitarianism to include the occurrence of occasional impact events, such as that observed on Jupiter. A crater about 35 km in diameter at Manson, Iowa, had previously been evaluated in connection with the K-T extinction and found to be too small. The observation of multiple impacts on Jupiter strengthened the proposal that the collisions that made the Manson and Chicxulub craters might have been part of a multiple event, although recent dating measurements indicated that the Manson crater may be older than 65 million years.

In 1994 there were few skeptics who doubted that a major collision with an extraterrestrial body occurred 65 million years ago. Some maintained, nevertheless, that the dinosaurs were already in decline and that the impact merely accelerated the mass extinction that was under way as a result of the climatic disruption caused by an enormous eruption of basalt--the flood basalts known today as the Deccan Traps--in India 65 million years ago. The argument was bolstered by the fact that only the K-T boundary is characterized by an iridium anomaly and that the several other mass extinctions that took place in the past 500 million years, therefore, must have had some other cause. At the Houston meeting Vincent Courtillot of the Institute of Physics of the Earth, Paris, presented evidence of a strong correlation between the ages of mass extinctions and of continental flood basalts, and he concluded that continental flood basalt volcanism is the main candidate for most extinction events. Interpretation of the evidence depends critically on accurate age measurements of both mass extinctions and flood basalt eruptions and their durations. Recent improvements in dating allowed researchers to confirm that most of the large flood basalt events lasted for less than one million years. Some uncertainties about the precise age of the Chicxulub crater could be resolved by a new drilling project, which would permit sampling of rocks in and under the crater.

Each continental flood basalt province represents a very large transfer of heat and material from within the Earth to its surface within a very short time. Recently a mechanism for the concentrated transfer was proposed that involved a modification of the concept of mantle plumes, cylinders of relatively hot rocks in the mantle (beneath the crust) that are rising slowly from perhaps as deep as the core-mantle boundary, 2,900 km down. Initially solid owing to the high pressure deep in the Earth, the plumes begin to melt as they approach the surface, yielding basaltic lavas. It was argued that "superplumes" sometimes developed and that the head of such a superplume grew in size by entraining rock from the surrounding mantle during its upward flow. When the large mushroom-shaped plume head approached the surface, it generated the enormous volumes of continental flood basalts. Subsequent plume activity from the thinner stem of the plume produced lesser volcanic activity, corresponding, for example, to that which formed the Hawaiian Islands.

Information about mantle plumes is based on fluid dynamics--i.e., on interpretation of small-scale laboratory experiments with different fluids--and on interpretation of the geochemistry of basalts. During the year a drilling experiment under way on the island of Hawaii was beginning to reveal more about the mantle plume that feeds lava to the volcanoes. The successive lava flows on the island represent samples of successive portions of the rising plume, and the accessible lavas on the volcanoes thus represent only the most recent history. A drill hole near Hilo 1,100 m (3,600 ft) deep first traversed lavas from Mauna Loa and then passed into lavas from Mauna Kea. According to Donald Thomas of the University of Hawaii, Donald DePaolo of the University of California at Berkeley, and Edward Stolper of the California Institute of Technology, the frequency and ages of flows indicate that the volcanoes may be twice as old as previously thought. Detailed geochemical studies of the lava samples taken from the drilling were expected to provide information about variations along the rising mantle plume. The earlier stages of volcanic growth from these plume-derived lavas were being sampled in ocean-drilling studies of Loihi, the youngest Hawaiian volcano, which is growing on the submerged flanks of Kilauea.

Causal relationships have also been proposed between mantle plumes and the breakup of some continents, those having margins identified as having been created by volcanic rifting. It is widely believed that the northeastern Atlantic Ocean formed from a continental split that developed above a hot mantle plume, the ancestor of today’s Iceland plume, and the possibility was explored during Leg 152 of the international Ocean Drilling Program in late 1993. Sites were drilled on the volcanically rifted margin of southeastern Greenland, and the first penetration through the volcanic cover into the underlying continental crust was achieved. Reports of results during 1994 revealed the tectonic and volcanic history of the continental breakup and confirmed the role of hot, buoyant mantle reaching fairly close to the surface in the rifting environment. Voluminous floodlike eruptions of basalt were in evidence. The upper series of lavas was richer in magnesium than normal oceanic basalts, indicating higher melting temperatures, but the trace-element geochemistry of the lavas was similar to that of normal mid-ocean ridge basalts, with no indication of basalts contributed from deep-seated mantle rocks, as would be expected if the lavas had been fed from a deep plume. Thus, a causal link between continental breakup and deep-seated mantle plumes was not yet established.

Basaltic volcanism causes the major chemical differentiation of the Earth; that is, the extraction of the components of the crust, hydrosphere, and atmosphere from the Earth’s interior. But a more extreme differentiation is accomplished by geomorphic, weathering, and sedimentary processes at and near the Earth’s surface. Sediments as diverse as limestone (calcium carbonate) and sandstone (silicon dioxide) derive from original basalts and other lavas. The weathering, transportation, and redeposition of rocks and soil form the differentiated sedimentary rocks, with many processes involving biological activity. The result is a modified landscape, the familiar scenery of the Earth’s surface. The important effects of biological agents are limited in magnitude and time, but during the year Roger Hooke of the University of Minnesota emphasized that this generalization breaks down when human beings are considered.

The role of humans in landscape modification, although long recognized, had not been treated in textbooks of geomorphology. Hooke compared the efficacy of various geomorphic agents, humans included, on a global scale. The measure used was the mass of material moved from one location to another by unidirectional processes (the study thus excluded such processes as waves moving beach sand back and forth perpendicular to the shoreline and plows turning soil from furrow to ridge). According to Hooke, the amount of sediment moved by rivers is about 24 billion tons per year (24 Gt/yr), of which 10 Gt/yr is due to agriculture, while glaciers transport about 4.3 Gt/yr of material. Slope processes, wave action, and wind move only about 2.5 Gt/yr. Hooke estimated that the worldwide geomorphic activity of humans in earth moving, such as building excavations, mineral production, and highway construction, is about 30 Gt/yr, not including the 10 Gt/yr of river sediment due to agriculture. Humans were thus the most important geomorphic agent shaping the surface of the Earth.

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