The "heavy bombardment period".

[maw lod qan]

There's been a lot of shows by NOVA on television lately,  plus I've had a couple good viewing sessions of the Moon.

Did the Earth get the same abuse the Moon got?

The size of some of the craters on the Moon make me think that even with our atmosphere, we also took a beating.

Things could definitely "smooth over" with the passing on billions of years, and the oceans would have helped, but still. It would have been a rough time.

Except for those who love seeing meteors!

[John]

I'm sure the Earth got pounded as well. Our atmosphere would have provided some protection from the smaller stuff and erosion over millions of years plus our extensive periods of tectonic activity  have masked much of the damage.

Impact still being uncovered though, although this one is thought to be from a relatviely recent impact:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/14/impact-crater-19-miles-wide-found-beneath-greenland-glacier

[Dave Lloyd]

I think the impact that formed the Gulf of Mexico was quite a bombardment. 

[Mr Spock]

Yes, but, at that time the Earth was still had a changeable surface and so most impacts were absorbed. Only a few later (much later) ones exist; even those are mostly hidden by erosion and shifting land masses.

[whizzbang]

the Gulf of mexico is a 'failed' sea floor spreading zone (almost identical to the North Sea), ie plate tectonics thinned the earths crust with a massive upwelling of heat, once the heat was removed the basin lost its underlying support and 'sagged', allowing an influx of the Pacific ocean. One distinct advantage of basins is no erosion but plenty of deposition. the chicxulub impact never suffered significant erosion, quite the opposite it was preserved by significant deposition of sediments flowing off the stable land masses of Gondwana (south America) and Laurasia (north America). basins are areas where significant minerals and hydrocarbons are found, hence the discovery by Premex back in the late 70s. sedimentary basins like the GoM are actually quite rare, only a tiny percentage of impacts are recorded in the geological record. 

Did the earth actually have a developed crust during the late heavy bombardment? the oldest significant crust material is around 3.8 billion years old.

1 hour ago, John said:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/14/impact-crater-19-miles-wide-found-beneath-greenland-glacier

this is an interesting one, thanks for posting that 

[maw lod qan]

Definitely eye opening see the difference between the near side and the far side of the Moon.

I guess the severity of the impact here would have also depended on the type of meteor, plus its size.

An iron meteor much smaller than one of stone or a mixture of stone/ice would survive our atmosphere to do more damage.

Our local planetarium has a 230lb piece of one from South America. It's not as big as a soccer ball.

[whizzbang]

and its angle of impact, there are some craters in argentina that are elongated and line up, its been suggested that the meteor had a very low angle of impact and was almost like skipping a stone across a pond ....

[Roy Challen]

Did Earth even have a significant atmosphere during that period? 

[old_eyes]

As far as I remember the heavy bombardment of the moon occurred in a geological period known as the Hadean, about 4.3 - 3.9 bn BP. There are virtually no rocks left on earth from this period. Most of the accessible rocks have been worked over many times since then by plate tectonics and erosion, so any craters left are more recent.

I think that this massive bombardment was triggered by the giant outer planets moving into new orbits, sending a rain of material into the inner solar system.

[StarryEyed]

On 27/07/2019 at 16:35, Roy Challen said:

Did Earth even have a significant atmosphere during that period? 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p07922lr/the

Watch this.