Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 27, 2026

Simulation of Early Earth Hydrothermal Chimneys in a Thermal Gradient Environment
Published on: February 27, 2021
Impact heating and the hidden Hadean
Tim E Johnson1, Craig O'Neill2, Simon Turner3
1Curtin Frontier Institute for Geoscience Solutions (CFIGS), School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia.
None:
The nature of Earth's crust during the Hadean eon [≥4.03 billion years ago (Ga)] is uncertain. Numerical models of early Earth geodynamics emphasize the control of mantle temperature but generally consider only internally derived heat, despite empirical evidence for an intense Hadean impact flux. Using a stochastic model of that flux, we show that the time-integrated heat due to impacts would have dwarfed that produced internally throughout the Hadean. Earth's Hadean crust would have been extensively molten at depths below a few kilometers, causing gravitational segregation of dense, iron- and magnesium-rich material and driving average crustal compositions to become increasingly silica rich. Globally, impact heating would have become much less important after 3.9 Ga, allowing the crust to thicken. That enduring continental crust appeared around this time is likely not a coincidence.
More Related Videos
10:52Conducting Elevated Temperature Normal and Combined Pressure-Shear Plate Impact Experiments Via a Breech-end Sabot Heater System
Published on: August 7, 2018
09:46Protocol for Measuring the Thermal Properties of a Supercooled Synthetic Sand-water-gas-methane Hydrate Sample
Published on: March 21, 2016
Related Concept Videos
Global Climate Change
Mechanism of heat transfer
Mechanisms of Heat Transfer II
Mechanisms of Heat Transfer
Conduction, accounting for approximately 3% of body heat loss at rest, is the process of exchanging heat between molecules of two materials in direct contact. This can result in both heat loss and gain. For instance, when the body is submerged in water, which conducts heat 20 times more effectively than air, it can either lose or gain significant heat.
Mechanisms of Heat Transfer I
Enthalpy and Heat of Reaction