Discovery of white hydrogen

 Discovery of white hydrogen in billion-year-old Canadian shield rock 

Within the Canadian Shield, hydrogen gas is steadily building up naturally among some of the oldest rocks on Earth. Now, for the first time, geochemists at the University of Toronto and the University of Ottawa have measured its presence, mapped its concentration and tracked its long-term accumulation, shedding new light on this source of natural, or white, hydrogen. The findings make it possible to assess the economic viability of this emerging energy source and point to a new approach to hydrogen exploration, one that could accelerate greenhouse gas reductions and expand hydrogen’s role in the clean energy transition. Earlier this year, scientists measured hydrogen flowing from billion-year-old Canadian Shield rocks through nearly 15,000 mine boreholes. The site could yield more than 140 tonnes of natural hydrogen each year. Ancient Canadian Shield rocks are quietly producing white hydrogen, a naturally occurring gas that could reshape the clean energy market. Scientists measured hydrogen escaping from mine boreholes near Timmins, Ontario. Each borehole released about 8 kg's a year. The finding gives natural hydrogen exploration something it lacked before: long-term, real-world evidence that underground hydrogen production can persist for years.

The gas is not being manufactured in a refinery or produced by splitting water with renewable electricity. It is forming naturally underground, accumulating in ancient rocks and groundwater, then escaping through boreholes drilled by miners. A new study has now provided something the emerging white hydrogen industry has badly needed: years of direct measurements showing that the gas can keep flowing over time. Researchers work, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, documents a decadal record of natural hydrogen production, storage and discharge. The measurements do not prove that Canada has discovered a giant ready-to-use fuel field, but they do show that hydrogen generated inside ancient continental rock can accumulate at rates worth investigating as a potential energy resource. Using data from an operating mine near Timmins, Ontario, the researchers show that boreholes at the site release an average of 0.008 tonnes of hydrogen/year, which is the weight of an average-sized car battery, and can continue to do so for 10 years or more. Such discharges could provide 4.7 million kilowatts of energy/year from a single location, enough to support the annual energy needs of over 400 households.

“The data from this study suggests there are critical untapped opportunities to access a domestic source of cost-effective energy produced from the rocks beneath our feet,” says University Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar in the Department of Earth Sciences in the Faculty of Arts & Science at University of Toronto. “What’s more, this provides a ‘made in Canada’ resource that might be able to support local and regional industry hubs and reduce their dependence on importing hydrocarbon-based fuels”. The location of this hydrogen discovery is significant for another reason. Many of the same geological regions associated with natural hydrogen also contain valuable mineral deposits. Northern Ontario and Quebec, along with parts of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, are important areas for mining and exploration. The Canadian Shield contains deposits of nickel, copper and other resources, while exploration is also targeting critical minerals including lithium, cobalt and chromium. This geological overlap could create an unusual advantage. A mine that already has roads, shafts, boreholes, power systems and geological information may not need to build an entirely separate exploration system to investigate natural hydrogen. If economically recoverable hydrogen is present close to an operating mine, it could potentially be consumed locally rather than transported long distances. Transportation is a major issue for northern communities and remote industrial operations. Fuel must often be moved over large distances, increasing costs and adding emissions. A locally available hydrogen resource could eventually provide another option for industrial heat, electricity generation or other applications, although significant engineering and economic work would be required before that possibility becomes reality.

The basic chemistry begins deep underground. Rocks contain small amounts of radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium. As these elements decay over geological time, they release radiation which can split water molecules in surrounding rock and groundwater. One result can be the formation of molecular hydrogen, H₂. Given enough time, repeated reactions can produce hydrogen faster than it escapes, allowing the gas to accumulate in fractures, pores and groundwater systems. This makes white hydrogen different from most hydrogen used today. The word “white” describes hydrogen that occurs naturally in the Earth rather than hydrogen manufactured through an industrial process. Conventional hydrogen production can rely on fossil fuels, while green hydrogen uses electricity, often from renewable sources, to split water. Natural hydrogen changes the equation because the Earth itself supplies much of the chemical energy needed to create the gas. The Canadian Shield is especially interesting because it contains enormous areas of ancient crystalline and volcanic rocks which have remained underground for immense periods. The rocks around the Timmins mining district belong to geological environments where hydrogen-producing reactions can occur. They also contain the fractures and groundwater pathways which allow gases generated deep underground to move toward openings in the crust.

The existing global hydrogen economy is a $135-billion industry. Major uses are in methanol and steel production, though the single largest use of hydrogen is fertilizer production, making it a fundamental component in agriculture and critically tied to global food security. Currently, hydrogen used in these ways is produced by energy-intensive industrial processes which typically convert hydrocarbons found in fossil fuels such as petroleum, natural gas and coal, while releasing carbon monoxide and CO2 in the process. Even hydrogen generated from renewable energy sources, often described as green hydrogen, is energy intensive, costly to produce and requires long distance transport and storage. The discovery did not begin with a purpose-built hydrogen well. It emerged from an active mining environment. Boreholes are routinely drilled deep into the ground to investigate ore bodies, understand geological structures and manage underground operations. Those holes can also connect underground fluids and gases with the surface, effectively providing scientists with windows into the chemical processes taking place hundreds or thousands of metres below ground. For more than a decade, researchers monitored gases emerging from boreholes at the mine near Timmins. That long observation period is crucial. A single gas measurement can show that hydrogen exists, but it cannot easily answer whether the gas is a temporary pulse or part of a sustained underground system. The new record provides evidence that hydrogen discharge can continue for 10 years or more, turning a geological curiosity into something that can be evaluated in terms of resource potential.

If the observed rate is representative across the site, the researchers estimate that the nearly 15,000 boreholes could collectively discharge more than 140 tonnes of hydrogen/year. The associated energy potential was estimated at about 4.7 million kilowatt-hours annually, enough to cover the annual electricity needs of more than 400 households under the comparison used by the researchers. The number matters less as a promise of immediate electricity production than as evidence that natural hydrogen can be quantified. Until recently, much of the discussion surrounding geological hydrogen depended on models, geological clues and estimates of how much hydrogen might theoretically exist underground. Direct measurements sustained over years provide a more practical way to judge whether particular locations could support commercial development. That also changes how scientists might search for white hydrogen. Instead of looking only for enormous underground accumulations, researchers can examine places where hydrogen is already escaping. Existing mines, wells, tunnels and other subsurface infrastructure could provide valuable information about the concentration, movement and persistence of the gas before companies invest heavily in exploration.

To date, white hydrogen as a source for energy and manufacturing has largely flown under the radar, investigated almost exclusively by microbiologists seeking to understand the subsurface biosphere and to inform astrobiology and space exploration. The potential contribution of natural hydrogen in Earth’s crust to the current global economy has until now been largely speculative, based on models and theoretically available amounts, rather than on measured data. The U of T-led study is the first to document large volumes of hydrogen, and most importantly, discharges which are sustained for years. Natural hydrogen is produced over time through underground chemical reactions between rocks and the groundwaters in those rocks. Canada is blessed that vast amounts of its territories, especially on the Canadian Shield, contain the right rocks and minerals to create this natural hydrogen. The discovery should not be mistaken for proof that white hydrogen is already a commercial replacement for fossil fuels. Finding hydrogen underground is only the first step. Scientists and engineers still need to determine how much gas can be recovered, how quickly underground reservoirs replenish, what other gases accompany the hydrogen, how extraction would affect groundwater and whether production can remain economically viable over decades.

There is also an important distinction between hydrogen production and hydrogen use. Hydrogen itself does not release CO2 when used in a fuel cell, but the overall environmental impact depends on how it is extracted, processed, compressed and transported. Natural hydrogen could have a much lower carbon footprint than fossil-based hydrogen if it can be recovered with limited energy input and without significant leakage or environmental disruption. The researchers’ findings therefore point toward a resource assessment rather than an instant energy revolution. Their strongest contribution may be the demonstration that long-term monitoring can reveal whether natural hydrogen systems behave like persistent resources. This is a much harder question to answer than simply detecting hydrogen in a rock sample. The researchers say Canada has the potential to provide an alternative to industrially produced hydrogen, using natural hydrogen to provide cheaper and cleaner sources of the resource and without the need for hydrocarbons. Such innovative hydrogen resource development can then be extended worldwide to other nations where hydrogen-producing rocks also commonly exist. They further note that natural hydrogen is found in the greatest volumes in the same geologic settings that have historically been the focus of Canada’s mining industry, locations include Northern Ontario and Quebec, as well as Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.

“The common link is the rock,” says study co-author Oliver Warr, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at University of Ottawa. “Natural hydrogen is produced in the same rocks where Canada’s nickel, copper and diamond deposits are found, and that are currently under exploration for critical minerals such as lithium, helium, chromium and cobalt. The co-location of mining resources and hydrogen production and use mitigates the need for long transportation routes to market, for hydrogen storage and major hydrogen infrastructure development.” Ancient continental rocks, groundwater systems and certain mineral-rich formations can provide the chemical ingredients needed for hydrogen production. The challenge is finding locations where production, accumulation and migration combine to create recoverable concentrations. The Timmins measurements offer a practical clue. Researchers can begin with places where natural hydrogen has already been detected, then measure concentration and flow directly over long periods. Existing mines and subsurface infrastructure may become especially valuable because they provide access to geological systems which would otherwise be difficult and expensive to study.

There is another scientific reason the discovery matters. Hydrogen is not only a possible future fuel. It is also food for certain microorganisms living deep beneath Earth’s surface. Natural hydrogen can therefore influence subsurface ecosystems and offers clues about how life survives in environments far removed from sunlight. The same chemistry has implications for astrobiology because similar water-rock reactions may occur on other rocky worlds. For now, the Canadian Shield discovery is best viewed as a door opening rather than a finished energy solution. Ancient rocks beneath Ontario have shown that they can generate, store and release measurable quantities of hydrogen for years. The next question is much bigger: how widespread are these systems, how much hydrogen can actually be recovered, and whether the economics work at scale. If those answers prove favorable, some of the world’s oldest rocks may become part of one of its newest energy industries. The authors suggest this untapped resource could reduce costs and carbon footprints for mines within Canada and provide a source of local clean energy for northern communities. Such a resource development model could not only offset carbon emissions for mining industries, but also potentially contribute to a meaningful reduction in the high costs of transporting fuel to communities in northern locations.

Groundbreaking discovery of life on Mars

 Building blocks of life  found by NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars 

 

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has been dutifully probing Gale crater and Mount Sharp since the robot plopped down on the Red Planet on 06 August, 2012. But there’s new news from the car-sized Mars machinery now wheeling about in the Glen Torridon region of Gale crater, a place that scientists believe was a locale where ancient conditions would have been favorable to supporting life, if it was there in the first place. NASA's Curiosity rover has found a diverse mix of organic molecules on Mars, including chemicals considered building blocks for the origin of life on Earth. The discovery from a rock sample Curiosity drilled in 2020 possessed the largest variety of organic molecules ever found on the Red Planet. When scientists studied the sample, they found 21 different carbon-containing molecules, seven of which had never been seen on Mars before. Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) is a suite of instruments built to search for compounds of the element carbon that are associated with life. NASA's Curiosity Mars rover found a diverse mix of organic molecules including chemicals widely considered building blocks for the origin of life on Earth. The finding marks the first time a new kind of chemical experiment has been performed on another planet.

Curiosity rover, car-sized Mars rover is now wheeling about in the Glen Torridon region of Gale crater, a place that scientists believe could have supported conditions which were favorable to supporting ancient life, if it was ever there in the first place. While in the region, Curiosity recently utilized its onboard Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite, built to search for compounds of the element carbon that are associated with life and investigate ways in which these compounds are generated and destroyed in the Martian ecosphere. Curiosity's SAM instrument was able to use a chemical known as tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) to detect organic molecules in the region's clay-rich sandstone. The newly identified chemicals include nitrogen and sulfur-bearing molecules which are similar to the raw material that helped spur life on Earth. However, the experiment can't tell if the chemicals come from ancient Martian life or non-biological geological processes. The study of Curiosity's first SAM TMAH experiment was led by Amy Williams, an associate professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Florida in Gainesville. The research has been published in the journal Nature Communications. Organic molecules are important because they are the basic chemical building blocks needed for life. While researchers say this discovery does not 100% prove that life existed on Mars, they said these molecules can be created through natural chemical or geological processes. And their presence shows that ancient Mars had the right chemistry to potentially support living organisms. The rock sample 'Mary Anning 3' was collected from the slopes of Mount Sharp, and billions of years ago, this area likely had lakes and streams.

"This experiment and its results have been a labor of love and science," Williams said. "This was the first time that TMAH had been used on another world and our team worked extensively to interpret and confirm the molecules detected in this first-of-its-kind experiment." Mars beckons for future life detection missions and instruments. Humans and robots are likely to team up to augment the types of exploration avenues which can be done on the Red Planet. Curiosity has found a diverse mix of organic molecules on Mars. The finding marks the first time a new kind of chemical experiment has been performed on another planet. Curiosity's experiment detected more than 20 organic molecules from clay-bearing sandstones in the roughly 3.5-billion-year-old Knockfarrill Hill section of Glen Torridon. The variety of organic molecules observed suggests that some chemical diversity has been preserved in ancient Martian sediments despite billions of years of diagenesis (the process by which sediment turns to rock) and radiation exposure. "We propose that this suite of organics represents TMAH thermochemolysis breakdown products from ancient organic macromolecular material that has been preserved in billions-of-years-old sedimentary rocks in Gale crater," explains the research paper. Williams said the rover's discoveries were confirmed with other instruments aboard. "We iterated on molecule identifications using some of the SAM flight spare equipment to confirm our findings," Williams said. "I think the time was well spent, as we now have evidence that the suite of molecules broken apart by the TMAH reagent derived from more complex macromolecular carbon that is preserved in the martian subsurface."

The NASA Curiosity rover finding confirms that ancient Mars had the right chemistry to support life. One of the most interesting discoveries in the rock was a nitrogen heterocycle, a type of molecule which contains carbon and nitrogen arranged in a ring. These structures are important because they can be early building blocks of RNA and DNA, the molecules which carry genetic information in living things. “That detection is pretty profound because these structures can be chemical precursors to more complex nitrogen-bearing molecules,” said Amy Williams. When scientists studied the sample, they found 21 different carbon-containing molecules, seven of which had never been seen on Mars before. Mars machinery has detected more than 20 organic molecules from clay-bearing sandstones in Glen Torridon, Gale crater, work done by the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument suite onboard the Curiosity rover. The newly-issued paper explains that the ongoing characterization of organic matter on Mars "is a pillar of modern robotic exploration, as space agencies send rovers and landers to explore Mars' past and present habitability and to search for signs of life." Furthermore, within a decade of time, researchers have advanced from the search for organic molecules on Mars to identifying native Martian organics. "We are now poised to address the source of these organics, whether exogenous (e.g., meteoritic, cometary, or interplanetary dust particles) or endogenous (e.g., abiotically or biologically produced)," Williams and colleagues report in the study. As noted, the confirmation of macromolecular organic matter "supports the possibility that future optimized TMAH thermochemolysis experiments can liberate ancient biosignatures preserved in macromolecules on Mars (if present)." The results of the SAM TMAH experiment "expand the library of confirmed and suggested organic molecules preserved over deep geologic time in the Martian near-surface and confirm the presence of macromolecular carbon on Mars," the paper concludes.

“Nitrogen heterocycles have never been found before on the Martian surface or confirmed in Martian meteorites. We think we're looking at organic matter that's been preserved on Mars for 3.5 billion years," Williams added. "It's really useful to have evidence that ancient organic matter is preserved, because that is a way to assess the habitability of an environment. And if we want to search for evidence of life in the form of preserved organic carbon, this demonstrates it's possible." Another molecule discovered was benzothiophene, which contains carbon and sulfur. This compound has also been found in meteorites and scientists believe meteorites may have helped spread the chemicals needed for life throughout the early solar system. “This is Curiosity and our team at their best. It took dozens of scientists and engineers to locate this site, drill the sample, and make these discoveries with our awesome robot,” said the mission’s project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “This collection of organic molecules once again increases the prospect that Mars offered a home for life in the ancient past.” The scientists say that Curiosity's discoveries could tie into observations from NASA's other on-duty Mars rover. "Our findings are aligned with some observations of organic matter with the Perseverance rover," Williams said. The TMAH experiment on Curiosity was used to identify cyclic (or aromatic) organic compounds that derived from more complex macromolecular carbon, Williams said. Meanwhile, the Perseverance rover has used a different instrument to find evidence for both cyclic organic compounds and macromolecular carbon. "We now have evidence for diverse and potentially complex organic matter, preserved in different locations on Mars and detected with different instrument suites. This suggests that organic carbon is better preserved over long time periods on Mars than we expected, given the harsh radiation environment," Williams said.

It’s the first time a new kind of chemical experiment has been performed on Mars, with researchers publishing their results in the journal Nature Communications. Can Ozempic change your mind? Dr. Drew breaks down ‘Ozempic personality’. Scientists believe the Torridon region of the Gale crater could have supported conditions favorable to supporting ancient life, if any such life ever existed on the red planet. Curiosity used its onboard Sample Analysis at Mars instruments to search for compounds of carbon associated with life and investigate how those compounds are generated and destroyed on Mars. Curiosity was able to identify chemicals, including nitrogen and sulfur-bearing molecules, in the clay-rich sandstone of the region. These new results could be useful for future life detection instruments done robotically or by astronauts, Williams said, calling the TMAH experiment a "trailblazer for upcoming planetary missions." Versions of the TMAH experiment are flying with the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA) on the European Space Agency's Rosalind Franklin rover destined for Mars' Oxia Planum plain, and on the Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer (DraMS) instrument being installed on the Dragonfly rotorcraft destined for Saturn's moon Titan. Williams said that the new results can help inform the experimental design for these future missions.

"The TMAH experiment revealed that macromolecular carbon is preserved over long time periods in some of the rocks on Mars. This is powerful information for future life detection missions and instruments, as we now know that larger molecules that could have been made by life can be preserved in the Martian near surface," Williams added. Next generation instruments can focus on techniques to more fully extract these organics and glean new information about their identity and potentially their origin, be it geologic, meteoritic, or biologic. However, the experiment isn’t able to definitively determine whether the chemicals come from geological processes or ancient Martian life. Researchers also say the findings aligned with findings from the Mars Perseverance rover, providing evidence for potential organic matter preserved in different locations.

Discovery of first ruby-like crystals on Mars

 NASA rover found fluorescent ruby-like gems on Mars

NASA's Perseverance rover has made a surprising discovery on Mars, finding tiny crystals of corundum. The minerals which form rubies and sapphires were embedded in Martian pebbles. This marks the first time such gems have been spotted on the Red Planet. The hints of the mineral were first spotted by Ann Ollila and her colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The discovery was made using the SuperCam instrument on the Perseverance rover, which analysed rocks like Hampden River, Coffee Cove and Smiths Harbour. Small, ruby-like crystals embedded in Martian rocks, which may also hide sapphires created in the fury of meteorite impacts. NASA's Perseverance rover found evidence of ruby-like crystals in a rock named Coffee Cove along with two others, a gemological first on the Red Planet. Mars is hiding a clutch of ruby-like crystals in its rocks, observations from the Perseverance rover suggest, and astronomers say other precious minerals, like sapphires, could exist across the Red Planet, too.

The Perseverance rover has found precious stones inside Martian pebbles. These gem grains are made of a substance called corundum, which is also known as ruby or sapphire depending on the traces of metals within it. Ann Ollila at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and her colleagues first spotted hints of corundum while using Perseverance’s SuperCam instrument to examine a rock called Hampden River. SuperCam has several different ways to test a material’s composition, using two different lasers to either burn off its surface or provoke luminescence, then two cameras to examine the resulting light. In both tests, the results for Hampden River were nearly identical to the results from rubies measured in the lab, indicating the presence of tiny grains of corundum in the rock. An international team of researchers presented the findings, based on observations from spring 2025, March 16 at the 57th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas. These findings are currently under peer review. The story begins a short time ago on a planet not too far away, when a roving robot the size of a compact car climbed the side of a 4 billion-year-old impact crater and began exploring its rim. On that ancient and stony rim, NASA's Perseverance rover found a curious scattering of pale-colored "float rocks", out-of-place rocks which must have been transported there by impacts, geological activity or hydrological processes.

The results showed tiny grains of corundum, less than 0.2 mm's across, which shone brightly when hit with a laser. Unlike Earth, Mars doesn't have plate tectonics, so the corundum likely formed when meteorites smashed into the ground, heating and compressing the dust. As scientists often do when faced with a curious specimen, they blasted it with a laser, specifically, the green laser from the Perseverance rover's SuperCam, situated atop its mast. This laser excites minerals, causing them to emit light at specific wavelengths. And because every element and compound emits certain wavelengths of light, this reveals a sample's chemical composition. It's also likely that the crystals formed under different conditions than those on our planet. On Earth, corundum is created through metamorphic and igneous processes, in which intense heat and pressure, facilitated by tectonic activity, transform existing rocks into potential gemstones. But because there is no conclusive evidence for plate tectonics on Mars, the researchers suggest that the ruby-like crystals on the Red Planet may have formed through cosmic impacts. "The impacts provide high temperatures and high pressures, which can produce corundum. Hydrothermal fluids are also generated," Payré explained. Yet the researchers must find additional samples, at their origin, to describe their formation mechanism. "As of now, the corundum crystals were found in small pebbles that are coming from elsewhere, i.e., they are out of context. It is therefore difficult to constrain the full story," Payré said.

"[Corundum] usually is associated, on Earth, with tectonism. It's a very specific environment - you have to have a very silica-poor environment, very aluminium-rich," as quoted, Ollila said. "I was very surprised," Allan Treiman of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Texas said during the conference session. The analysis showed that three of the laser-blasted float rocks exhibited clear signatures of the mineral corundum, with inclusions of the element chromium, crystals which match the chemical description of rubies. However, because the crystals are too small to be seen by Perseverance's imager, and their exact chemical composition is uncertain, the researchers aren't sure whether they have truly found Martian rubies or perhaps some other type of corundum. "The different types of corundum are based on the chemistry," study co-author Valerie Payré, a planetary geologist at the University of Iowa. "Although corundum is Al2O3, there are minor elements like chromium, titanium, and iron that can be present." The match is nearly identical. "These elements will provide the color to the mineral, and the name of it," Payré added. "We cannot quantify the amount of chromium, and other elements like iron and titanium might be present too. It is thus difficult to conclude whether they are rubies or other types of corundum [like sapphires]." The team ultimately classified the crystals as corundum and declined to guess about the variety without more chemical evidence.

Corundum is a mineral made of aluminum and oxygen. It is one of the hardest known natural substances, approaching the toughness of diamonds. Pure corundum is colorless, but microscopic impurities imbue it with brilliant hues. Iron or titanium inclusions yield brilliant blue sapphires, while chromium produces even rarer, resplendent rubies. As of now, the corundum crystals were found in small pebbles which are coming from elsewhere, i.e., they are out of context. However, anyone holding out hope for a future Martian-gemstone-studded necklace may be disappointed. The corundum crystals found within the float rocks are tiny,  less than 0.2 mm's (0.008 inches) in diameter. Could slightly larger Martian rubies exist? "Yes, possibly," study co-author Olivier Beyssac, a senior scientist at the French National Center for Scientific Research said. "Anyway corundum is pretty rare on Earth and rarely present as big crystals so one could expect the same on Mars." Rubies are far from the only spectacular stones found at Jezero crater, and further research may reveal sapphire-like stones there as well. In the past, scientists also discovered signs of other potential gemstones elsewhere on Mars, including quartz and opal, suggesting that our red planetary neighbor is a gem laboratory. "In retrospect, one might not have been, because there are aluminium-rich outcrops elsewhere on the planet and there are impacts, but I thought it was very shocking to see this. I would love to be able to pick one of those up and analyse it and see if it looks red - it's pretty disappointing that all you can see is this white pebble," Ollila said, further adding that when they were hit with the SuperCam laser, they shone brightly. This discovery provides new insights into Mars' geological history and suggests the planet has remained chemically and thermally active more recently than previously believed by us.

A 330-foot tsunami was triggered by a massive asteroid

 A massive asteroid hit the North Sea and triggered a 330-foot tsunami, says Scientists

A long-running dispute about the origin of a North Sea crater has finally been settled, as new research finds a massive asteroid hit the water and triggered a towering tsunami millions of years ago. Scientists have found that the Silverpit Crater, which lies around 700 metres beneath the southern North Sea seabed, roughly 80 miles off the coast of Yorkshire, was formed when an asteroid or comet struck the region roughly 43 to 46 million years ago. New research shows structure is one of Earth's rare impact craters. It was a long-running debate about the Silverpit Crater beneath the North Sea. Scientists now confirm it formed when a roughly 160-meter asteroid struck the seabed about 43–46 million years ago. New seismic imaging and rare shocked minerals in rock samples provided the crucial proof. The impact would have sent a massive plume skyward and unleashed a tsunami over 100 meters (330 feet) high. Since geologists first identified the formation in 2002, the three-km-wide crater and its surrounding ring of circular faults spanning about 20km have sparked intense debate. But researchers say their new study marks the clearest evidence yet that the structure is one of Earth's rare impact craters. This confirmation places it in the same category as well-known structures such as the Chicxulub Crater in Mexico, which is linked to the dinosaur mass extinction.

The team used computer modelling and analysed newly available seismic imaging and microscopic geological samples taken from beneath the seabed. So now a long running scientific dispute about the origin of the Silverpit Crater beneath the southern North Sea has been settled. The structure was formed when an asteroid or comet struck the region roughly 43 to 46 million years ago. The investigation was led by Dr. Uisdean Nicholson of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The team combined seismic imaging, microscopic analysis of rock fragments, and computer modeling to produce the clearest evidence yet that Silverpit is one of Earth's rare impact craters. Dr Uisdean Nicholson said: “New seismic imaging has given us an unprecedented look at the crater. Samples from an oil well in the area also revealed rare 'shocked' quartz and feldspar crystals at the same depth as the crater floor. We were exceptionally lucky to find these, a real 'needle-in-a-haystack' effort. These prove the impact crater hypothesis beyond doubt, because they have a fabric that can only be created by extreme shock pressures.”

Nicholson's team analyzed newly available seismic imaging and geological samples taken from beneath the seabed. These microscopic minerals form only under the extreme pressures generated during asteroid impacts, providing strong confirmation of the event. The evidence indicates that an asteroid about 160 meters wide slammed into the seabed at a shallow angle from the west. Dr. Nicholson said: "Our evidence shows that a 160-meter-wide asteroid hit the seabed at a low angle from the west. Within minutes, it created a 1.5-kilometer high curtain of rock and water that then collapsed into the sea, creating a tsunami over 100 meters high." The impact would have produced a violent explosion at the seafloor and sent enormous waves spreading across the region. Professor Gareth Collins of Imperial College London attended the 2009 debate about the crater's origin and contributed the numerical simulations used in the new research. Professor Collins said: "I always thought that the impact hypothesis was the simplest explanation and most consistent with the observations. It is very rewarding to have finally found the silver bullet. We can now get on with the exciting job of using the amazing new data to learn more about how impacts shape planets below the surface, which is really hard to do on other planets."

The scientists say these microscopic minerals form only under the extreme pressures generated during asteroid impacts, providing strong confirmation of the event. Early research proposed that the feature was created by a high speed asteroid impact. Supporters of that idea pointed to its round shape, central peak and surrounding concentric faults, which are often seen in known impact craters. But other scientists suggested different explanations. Some proposed that underground salt movement distorted the rock layers and created the structure. Few argued that volcanic activity may have caused the seabed to collapse. Since geologists first identified the formation in 2002, the 3 km wide crater and its surrounding ring of circular faults spanning about 20 km have sparked intense debate. Early research proposed that the feature was created by a high speed asteroid impact. Supporters of that idea pointed to its round shape, central peak and surrounding concentric faults, which are often seen in known impact craters. In 2009, geologists even voted on the issue. According to a report in the December 2009 issue of Geoscientist magazine, most participants rejected the asteroid impact explanation at the time. The latest findings now overturn that conclusion. The research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

The impact would have produced a violent explosion at the seafloor and sent enormous waves spreading across the region. Dr. Nicholson said, "Silverpit is a rare and exceptionally preserved hypervelocity impact crater. These are rare because the Earth is such a dynamic planet, plate tectonics and erosion destroy almost all traces of most of these events. Around 200 confirmed impact craters exist on land, and only about 33 have been identified beneath the ocean. We can use these findings to understand how asteroid impacts shaped our planet throughout history, as well as predict what could happen should we have an asteroid collision in future." Confirming Silverpit as an impact crater places it in the same category as well known structures such as the Chicxulub Crater in Mexico, which is linked to the dinosaur mass extinction, and the Nadir Crater off the coast of West Africa which was recently identified as another impact site. 

How do gold nuggets form?

 Important factor behind the creation of large gold nuggets are earthquakes

Gold has always been a hot commodity. But these days, finding a nugget isn’t too tricky: Much of the world’s gold is mined from natural veins of quartz, a glassy mineral which streaks through large chunks of Earth’s squashed-up crust. But the geologic process that put gold nuggets there in the first place was a mystery. Scientists have finally solved a long-standing mystery about the geologic process behind these large pieces of gold found in quartz rock. Crack open a chunk of white quartz from a gold mine and you might see bright metal streaks inside. For more than a century, geologists looked at scenes like that and said, “Gold got here in hot water.” They meant that super‑hot fluids moved through cracks in the rock, carried dissolved gold, and then left that gold behind when conditions changed. The idea explains a lot, but it raises a tough question: those fluids usually carry only tiny amounts of gold compared with the volume of water, so how can that kind of solution leave behind large nuggets inside quartz, a mineral that hardly reacts with anything? This puzzle still bothers geologists. The nuggets owe their existence to the strange electrical properties of common quartz. When squished or jiggled, the mineral generates electricity. That drags gold particles out of fluid in Earth’s crust. The particles crystallize out as grains of gold, and, over time, with enough electrical stimulation, those grains bloom into nuggets.

“If you shake quartz, it makes electricity. If you make electricity, gold comes out,” says Christopher Voisey, a geologist at Monash University in Australia. Earthquakes are the most likely natural source of that shaking, and the team’s lab experiments show that earthquakes can make gold nuggets. To probe that idea, the scientists ran a series of controlled lab experiments. They placed pieces of quartz into solutions containing dissolved gold, similar to hydrothermal fluids deep underground. Then they mechanically stressed the quartz to imitate the sudden push and pull of an earthquake and examined the crystal surfaces with high‑resolution microscopes. Metallic gold appeared: bright specks, clusters of nanoparticles, and small pseudo‑hexagonal crystals perched on the quartz grains. These shapes match what researchers expect from electrochemical deposition, where dissolved gold ions gain electrons and turn into solid metal on a surface. Instead of always using quartz with no metal, they also started with quartz that already contained a little gold, much closer to a natural vein. In that setup, the small gold grains acted as conductors within the system. When stress created an electric field in the quartz, those metal grains concentrated the field around themselves, so new gold nanoparticles tended to grow on and around the older ones, forming halos and tight clusters. Under these conditions, the electric charges could “plate” gold out of solution, so fresh metal coated the quartz surface and thickened the deposits.

The idea that gold nuggets appear because of electricity instead of a more conventional geologic process is, at first, a peculiar thought. But “it makes complete sense,” says Thomas Gernon, a geoscientist at the University of Southampton in England. Quartz veins host a disproportionate number of gold nuggets and their environments experience plenty of earthquakes. Geologist Christopher Voisey at Monash University, together with colleagues at CSIRO and the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering (ANSTO), tested a different twist on the story: electricity generated during earthquakes can help build gold inside quartz veins. They focused on a property of quartz called piezoelectricity. When a quartz crystal is squeezed, bent or twisted, its atomic structure shifts enough to separate positive and negative charges. One side of the crystal becomes relatively positive, the other relatively negative, so a voltage appears across it. The same effect drives quartz watches, but there it is carefully controlled by tiny electrical circuits. Fault zones that host gold deposits contain many quartz veins. In those zones, rocks break, slip and grind past each other as tectonic plates move. During a quake, stress builds up in the quartz and is released, so piezoelectric charges appear and fade. The team asked a simple, testable question: are those voltages strong enough to move electrons, pull gold out of solution, and attach gold directly to quartz surfaces?

Gold is extracted from a variety of geologic deposits, but it’s frequently found within quartz veins. From afar, alabaster sheets of quartz can look like bright cobwebs weaving through rock. Gold-bearing quartz veins are found in parts of the crust that have undergone a lot of stress and strain from events like mountain formation. These stressed, warped and fragmented areas are riddled with faults. When faults rupture during earthquakes, hot geologic fluids, sometimes containing gold particles, rush into the cracks, cool and form gold-rich quartz veins. It’s normally thousands to tens of thousands of pulses of [this] fluid that comes in during earthquake events then, over time, that builds an orogenic gold deposit. These gold particles find their way into quartz veins isn’t unexpected. But within these veins, miners tend to find large nuggets of gold sitting by themselves rather than just tiny grains all over the place. “How do you get such massive concentrations of gold in quartz veins?” says Iain Pitcairn, an ore geologist at Stockholm University in Sweden. “It’s strange and difficult to explain that.” Something must be forcing all the gold particles into specific locations, but what? In a fault zone filled with such veins and bathed in gold‑bearing fluids, each earthquake briefly turns the system into an electrochemical cell. On some quartz surfaces, electrons accumulate, and dissolved gold species pick up those electrons and become metallic gold. On other surfaces, complementary reactions occur, and charged ions in the fluid move to balance out the charges. Each “squeeze”, each earthquake, charges the quartz a little and drives a small amount of gold plating onto existing grains or onto fresh nucleation sites.

Quartz itself is also quite odd. It’s a simple mineral, made with just silicon and oxygen. But it’s also the only common mineral whose crystals lack a center of symmetry, meaning it’s structurally wonky. This means, under certain conditions, quartz’s internal electrical configuration is also imbalanced, which allows it to do something weird: create electricity. Quartz doesn’t spark up by itself. But if you apply a force to a quartz crystal, stamp on it, say, then it generates an electric field. This phenomenon is known as piezoelectricity (which derives from piezo, the Greek word for “push”). The more force you put in, the higher the piezoelectric response. If you hit a quartz crystal hard enough that it breaks, you’ll get the most voltage you could possibly get out of it. Once there is even a tiny “seed” of gold, that grain becomes the preferred place for more gold to plate out during each stress event. Quartz acts as an electrical insulator and does not let electrons move easily through its interior, which makes it hard to start nugget growth from nothing. Gold, on the other hand, conducts electricity well. As soon as a small conductive grain forms, it concentrates the electric field at its surface and lets electrons move efficiently right where they are needed. As the reactions continue, the system develops a “rich get richer” pattern: fewer, larger gold pieces rather than many tiny ones. In another set of experiments, the team immersed quartz in a liquid filled with gold nanoparticles. When they stressed the quartz, those particles no longer stayed spread out evenly in the fluid. They drifted, gathered and clumped into larger clusters directly on the quartz surface. “The results were stunning,” said study co-author Professor Andy Tomkins, from the Monash University School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment. “The stressed quartz not only electrochemically deposited gold onto its surface, but it also formed and accumulated gold nanoparticles,” Tomkins explained. “Remarkably, the gold had a tendency to deposit on existing gold grains rather than forming new ones.” This behavior shows that electric fields around stressed quartz can gather and concentrate mobile gold particles even before they fuse into a continuous grain.

In nature, quartz veins bearing gold nuggets are probably formed not through a single earthquake event, but by a cornucopia of them. After the first few quakes sprout grains of gold, additional earthquakes cause more and more gold particles to crystallize atop those grains, eventually forming nuggets. The electrical mechanism does not replace classic models of gold formation. Hot, gold‑bearing fluids still have to move through fractures at suitable temperatures and pressures, and changes in fluid chemistry still help metal separate from solution. The new work adds an extra step: piezoelectric voltages during earthquakes focus gold growth onto particular spots in quartz, especially where some metal already exists. Most of the world’s large gold nuggets come from quartz veins in orogenic gold systems, which supply roughly three‑quarters of the gold mined in human history. In many of these deposits, miners encounter large lumps of metal in thick veins instead of a thin dusting of gold spread everywhere. In essence, the quartz acts like a natural battery, with gold as the electrode, slowly accumulating more gold with each seismic event. This study suggests that seismic activity, by charging and discharging quartz over geologic time, helps explain the tight partnership between gold and quartz and the rare cases where nature builds especially hefty nuggets. Centuries ago, the notion that you could shake run-of-the-mill quartz about and generate gold would be considered nothing short of alchemy. Study shows that, although nature is capable of acts of magic, it just takes the right team, and the right experiment, to reveal how the trick is performed. And sometimes, the secret seems to be disarmingly simple for all to understand.

Latest about what Rover found on Mars

 Non-Life Explanations about what Rover found on Mars by NASA

Last year, NASA’s Curiosity rover made a fascinating discovery after boring into a suspected ancient lake bed on Mars: long-chain organic molecules, called alkanes, which could serve as a potential chemical relic of ancient life on the Red Planet. The molecules, researchers suggested at the time, could have derived from fatty acids, which are common building blocks of cell membranes on Earth, once again strengthening the case that Mars could’ve been teeming with life billions of years ago. It was just another tantalizing clue in our search for extraterrestrial life, not the smoking gun we’ve all been waiting for. At that time scientists studying a rock sample collected by NASA’s Curiosity rover disclosed something tantalizing: the largest organic molecules ever detected on Mars. The compounds, decane, undecane, and dodecane, may be fragments of fatty acids, which on Earth are most often linked to life. While non-living processes like meteorite impacts can also create such molecules, researchers found those sources couldn’t fully explain the amounts detected.

Nonetheless, scientists continue to be fascinated by the finding. A team led by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Alexander Pavlov argues that the presence of these molecules, despite the millions of years of destructive radiation that pummeled the Martian surface after it lost much of its atmosphere,  “cannot be readily explained” by non-biological processes alone. One theory is that carbon-rich dust particles and meteorites could have deposited these long-chain organic molecules on the surface, with the ancient Martian atmosphere allowing the organics to accumulate billions of years ago. NASA's Curiosity Mars rover took a selfie at a location nicknamed Mary Anning after a 19th-century English paleontologist. Curiosity snagged three samples of drilled rock at this site on its way out of the Glen Torridon region. A new scientific analysis suggests that known non biological processes cannot fully explain the amount of organic material discovered in a rock collected on Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover. Organic compounds are carbon containing molecules that form the chemical building blocks of life as we know it. They can be created by living organisms, but some can also form through natural chemical reactions that do not involve life. Curiosity, which has been exploring Gale Crater since 2012, carries a miniature chemistry lab designed to heat rock samples and analyze the gases they release. Using this onboard laboratory, scientists detected several intriguing compounds in a drilled rock sample.

Nonetheless, scientists stopped well short of making any definitive statements about life on the Red Planet. After all, there could be still-unknown, non-biological processes we don’t know about that could have resulted in the observed concentration of long-chain carbon molecules on Mars. “We agree with Carl Sagan’s claim that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and understand that any purported detection of life on Mars will necessarily be met with intense scrutiny,” they concluded. “In addition, in practice with established norms in the field of astrobiology, we note that the certainty of a life detection beyond Earth will require multiple lines of evidence.” Curiosity's instruments can identify molecules, but they cannot directly determine how those molecules formed. Because of this limitation, researchers could not tell whether the compounds were produced by biological activity or by non living chemical processes. To explore that question, scientists conducted a follow up investigation focused on known non biological sources. One possibility is that meteorites striking Mars delivered organic material to the surface. Meteorites are known to contain carbon based molecules, and impacts have been common throughout Martian history. The team evaluated whether this type of external delivery, along with other abiotic chemical reactions, could account for the levels of organic compounds measured in the sample.

The researchers reported that the non biological mechanisms they examined could not fully account for the abundance of organic compounds detected by Curiosity. Based on their analysis, they concluded that it is reasonable to consider the possibility that living organisms could have contributed to the formation of these molecules. This does not mean life has been confirmed on Mars. Instead, it suggests that non living explanations alone may not be sufficient to explain the data. However, Pavlov and his colleagues aren’t convinced. After studying how 80 million years’ worth of pelting radiation could have affected these molecules, they concluded that prior to the loss of the planet’s atmosphere, the concentration of these alkanes was likely much higher than previously thought. To help explain their findings, they took into account other non-biological processes in an attempt to arrive at their inferred original abundance,  but couldn’t, even after combining all of them. In other words, biological processes like the ones observed on Earth are still a leading theory, even after researchers’ best efforts to find a non-life explanation. “We argue that such high concentrations of long-chain alkanes are inconsistent with a few known abiotic sources of organic molecules on ancient Mars,” they said.

Earlier, researchers announced they had identified trace amounts of decane, undecane, and dodecane. These are hydrocarbons, meaning they are made only of carbon and hydrogen atoms. They belong to a group of molecules that can be related to fatty acids. Fatty acids are important components of cell membranes in living organisms on Earth, although similar molecules can also form through purely geological reactions under certain conditions. The rock that contained these compounds is an ancient mudstone located in Gale Crater. Mudstone forms from fine grained sediment that once settled in water, suggesting the area may have hosted lakes billions of years ago. Scientists proposed that the molecules detected by Curiosity could be fragments of fatty acids that were preserved in the rock over vast stretches of time. Nonetheless, it’s a tantalizing waypoint in our longstanding efforts to determine whether Mars, a planet that was once covered in huge oceans, rivers and lakes, could have supported life. Pavlov and his colleagues are now calling for further research into how radiation degraded these intriguing molecules under Mars-like conditions to shed more light on the matter.

To better understand how much organic material may have originally been present, the scientists combined laboratory radiation experiments, computer simulations, and Curiosity's measurements. Mars lacks a thick atmosphere and a global magnetic field like Earth's, which means its surface is constantly exposed to cosmic radiation. Over time, this radiation can break apart complex molecules. The team attempted to "rewind the clock" by about 80 million years, which is how long the rock is estimated to have been exposed at the Martian surface. By modeling how radiation gradually destroys organic molecules, they calculated how much material would have existed before being degraded. Their results indicate that the original quantity of organic compounds was likely far greater than what typical non biological processes are known to produce. The researchers emphasize that further experiments are necessary to understand how quickly organic molecules break down in Mars like rocks under Mars like environmental conditions. Laboratory studies that better replicate Martian temperatures, radiation levels, and chemistry will help refine these estimates. Until more data are available, scientists cannot draw firm conclusions about whether these compounds point to past life or can ultimately be explained through chemistry alone. What the findings do show is that the chemical story preserved in Martian rocks may be more complex and more intriguing than previously thought.