The emergence of man on Earth was triggered by natural disasters that began due to the space "bombardment", says British scientist Ted Nield. 470 million years ago, a giant asteroid located between Mars and Jupiter fell apart into pieces that fell on our planet for 10 million years. As a result, according to Nield, biological evolution accelerated many times over and new animal forms appeared
“Research shows that about 470 million years ago, the Earth was hit by a meteorite belt. This has led to a significant increase in the diversity of wildlife,”said Nield.
His view of evolution is based on the work of the Swedish scientist Birger Schmitz, who, in the course of studying rocks from different regions of the world, discovered that it was during this period that there was a 100-fold increase in the number of meteorites that fell to the Earth's surface compared to the average historical indicators.
Schmitz first came to his conclusions by studying fossils in his native Sweden, but then he traveled to China and other countries, and there he found the same sharp increase in the number of meteorites in a certain period of time. According to Schmitz's conclusion, the bombardment lasted about 10 million years, while it lasted especially intensively for 2 million years.
The diameter of the asteroid itself was perhaps several hundred kilometers. It broke into many fragments, the size of which, in turn, could reach 10 km. An asteroid of the same size is believed to have destroyed the dinosaurs, Nield noted.
After such natural cataclysms on Earth, an unexplained acceleration of evolution took place, since before that life on the planet was distinguished by primitive and small organisms. Schmitz and Nield believe that the meteorite bombardment and the increased danger forced nature to seek options for preserving biological life through the creation of more numerous and diverse forms, including the ancestors of dinosaurs, mammals and fish. In addition, the Earth's climate and geological structure have changed. As a result, according to scientists, all these processes led to the emergence of man.
Geological deposits show that by the time this unprecedented "bombardment" began, the evolution of living organisms was in a state of calm. The Cambrian period, which was characterized by the appearance of animals with shells, was noted 80 million years earlier. Mostly living organisms lived in water, and there were not so many species of them. The structure of the Earth was also different: the main land mass was concentrated in the Southern Hemisphere as part of a giant supercontinent, which scientists call Gondwana.
Proponents of this theory, recalling the traditional opinion, which sees in falling meteorites and asteroids the reason for the disappearance of numerous species of animals and plants, say that this is indeed so. But by the time the meteorite bombardment began, there were not many species of living organisms on Earth that could be destroyed by it. "It's much more complicated than it sounds," Nield noted in this regard.
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For the first time, a new look at the possible consequences of the bombardment of the Earth by meteorites that occurred 470 million years ago was expressed in 2007 by Schmitz. In the coming weeks, Neeld's book, Incoming!, Is coming out, which provides detailed arguments for this theory.
A number of experts also indicate that chemical and biological compounds could be brought to Earth from space with meteorites and asteroids, which accelerated evolution and created new types of organisms.