Ozima Minoru, Yin Qing-Zhu, Podosek Frank A, Miura Yayoi N
Graduate School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008 Nov 18;105(46):17654-8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0806596105. Epub 2008 Nov 10.
Because of the almost total lack of geological record on the Earth's surface before 4 billion years ago, the history of the Earth during this period is still enigmatic. Here we describe a practical approach to tackle the formidable problems caused by this lack. We propose that examinations of lunar soils for light elements such as He, N, O, Ne, and Ar would shed a new light on this dark age in the Earth's history and resolve three of the most fundamental questions in earth science: the onset time of the geomagnetic field, the appearance of an oxygen atmosphere, and the secular variation of an Earth-Moon dynamical system.
由于40亿年前地球表面几乎完全缺乏地质记录，这一时期地球的历史仍然是个谜。在此，我们描述一种切实可行的方法来解决因这种缺乏而产生的棘手问题。我们建议，对月球土壤中的轻元素（如氦、氮、氧、氖和氩）进行检测，将为地球历史上的这个黑暗时代带来新的曙光，并解决地球科学中三个最基本的问题：地磁场的起始时间、氧气大气层的出现以及地月动力系统的长期变化。
