Impact Deposition

As mentioned on the impact erosion page smaller impacts tend to add mass to the atmosphere instead of removing it. Obviously the amount of mass added by a small impact is equal to the volatile content of the impactor. Some small fraction of that mass gets deposited in the upper atmosphere where it is burned off during the impactors descent. For the smallest (and most numerous) impactors the entire contents go into the well above the ground atmosphere as they completely burn up during their descent.

In the model the impactor flux is simply integrated over all sizes to determine the total impactor mass that is contributed. This value is then distributed between the different altitude bins according to the density structure of the atmosphere.