Effect of a giant meteorite impact on Paleoarchean environment and life

> Drabon and her colleagues went in search of evidence of ancient major impacts in a remote area south of Kruger National Park in South Africa. There they sought out rocky outcrops containing a layer of spherules – molten droplets formed following a major meteorite impact that rained down over huge swathes of the planet. There are eight such spherule bands in this area, each preserving an ancient impact event.

> While the impact crater itself is long gone, analysis of rocks from 3.26 billion years ago tells a tale of planetary devastation. The layer of spherules from this huge impact was 15 to 20cm thick in places, compared with less than a centimetre for the famed dinosaur-killing meteorite, says Drabon.

I hope that your reaction is because the headline is way more sensational (to the extent of probably being incorrect) than the actual paper's abstract (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2408721121)

Here's what the actual paper says:

> [...] Thus, the S2 impact likely had regional, if not global, positive and negative effects on life. The tsunami, atmospheric heating, and darkness would likely have decimated phototrophic microbes in the shallow water column. However, the biosphere likely recovered rapidly, and, in the medium term, the increase in nutrients and iron likely facilitated microbial blooms, especially of iron-cycling microbes.

Which sounds and - if I understand it correctly - means something kinda different than how "reset early life" is ordinarily understood, huh.