Meteorite impacts are often associated with huge disasters, mass extinction and why the dinosaurs disappeared from the face of the Earth some 65 million years ago. However, the opposite may also occur - that new and more varied animal life arises following such a catastrophe, is shown by new research conducted by the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen. Together with colleagues from Lund University in Sweden, two palaeontologists, Svend Stouge and Dave Harper, have discovered that the Earth in the so-called Ordovician period 490-440 million years ago was struck by more than 100 meteorites at one time, and that in the wake of this event, new and more varied life evolved in the oceans, which at that time were home to virtually all life on Earth. "You could say that biological evolution experienced a serious boost within a relatively short period of time. And, as is the case with, for example, volcanic eruptions or large forest fires, the impacts initially had a devastating effect on all life, but from the ashes arose a much richer fauna than had existed previously. And another interesting aspect is that this situation occurred 40 million years after the so-called Cambrian explosion. It was during this explosion that the first complex multicellular creatures appeared, even though scientists are still discussing whether this evolution was a rapid explosion or whether it took place over a longer period of time," says Dave Harper from the University of Copenhagen.

The conclusions of the two scientists are, among other things, based on computer analyses, chemical samples from meteorites, fossils and examination of different craters in Sweden, for example the large Lockne crater near Østersund in northern Sweden, which has a diameter of 7.

View: Full Article | Source: Science Daily

Possibly meteors did help in fertilizinng Earth and made it more easier for life to grow in the oceans or land.

I don’t know Man, that’s a tuff call, I mean if the Meteorite slammed into a Large enough Planetary body with no Atmosphere, I could possibly see it infecting of the Planet with a organism, but if the Planet had an Atmosphere say like that of the Earth I just cannot seem to believe that the organism would reach the planet’s surface as alive because of the incredible extreme temperatures of the entry into the planet’s Atmosphere, I would think that even as extremely tuff organism like the one they are saying is stout enough to thrive upon the Earth's Moon's extreme conditions that organism too would never survive the entry due to the extreme temperatures, as a high velocity object of a large enough space object would and having to need to be of a huge enough size to make it to the surface would create one very hot Entry temperature. Even the temperature of the outer skin of the of the Space Shuttle exceeds well over 1650 degrees Celsius or rather 3000 degrees Fahrenheit and that's with a smooth surface and with heat resistant tiles and skins, a meteorite will not be smooth and perfect upon its surface and thus it will create a hell of a friction and thus a very high Temperature will be produced with a flame trail, and if it is even hollow inside of has a void cavity and even more so if that has any fluid or moister or ice content inside it very well possible explode when the temperatures reach extremes .. We see this every night...and so I Just cannot see it happening. Pavot

Hello Pavot,

I'm not sure if the article was directly talking of 'Panspermia'?

I agree that organisms inside of meteors couldn't survive the plunge into our atmoshpere but could of altered the organisms that were here on Earth. We know meteors can and most likely destroyed the dominant species and allowing inferior ones to thrive, which might of caused transformations through out time.

Meteors did cause catastrophies and life on earth had to adapt to them.

its true, comets get a little to hot upon entering the atmosphere and it hard to believe life could survive. But anythings possible... say for instance you never saw an animal produce its own electricity.. it might be something people would object to. This world has never and will never advanced without open minded people.

Thats why men like Immanuel Velikovsky are freak'n legends...