It’s not you, it’s me(teorites)

Fun fact – Earth is the only planet in our Solar System that has continents (yeah, yeah, yeah, four of the eight planets are gas. But still).

Exactly how they formed is still an open question, but scientific consensus maintains that long ago, all of our planet’s land mass was connected together to form one big supercontinent, known as Pangea – though just like a previously married couple who quietly changed their last names on Instagram, we’re not quite sure what caused it to break up.

📝🌏 Until now… There’s strong evidence Pangea broke up due to giant meteor impacts throughout Earth's early history, according to a newly published peer-reviewed study conducted by scientists from Curtin University in Australia.

The researchers’ smoking gun lies in the Pilbara Craton, aka the best-preserved chunk of the Earth’s crust in existence from the Archean Eon, a period of time ~3 billion years ago.

• After studying the presence of different types of oxygen isotopes in 26 rock samples from Pilbara, they discovered the first solid evidence that giant meteorite impacts stimulated continent formation.

✋ Yes, but: There are other Pangea break-up theories – like the plate tectonic theory, for instance. And the researchers only studied one craton, a piece of continent that’s been stable for over a billion years, out of around 35 known in the world.

👀 Looking ahead… The scientists’ next step is to compare results from this craton with samples from others... only then will we see if their model holds up.