Crater Nadir Scientists Discover 5 Mile Wide Undersea Crater Created As Dinosaurs Died Out

Uisdean Nicholson, assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, happened upon the crater by accident — he was examining seismic survey data for another project on the tectonic divide between South America and Africa and found evidence of the crater under 400 meters of bottom sediment . “While interpreting the data, (I encountered) this very unusual crater-like feature, unlike anything I had ever seen before,” he said. To be absolutely sure the crater was caused by an asteroid impact, he said it would be necessary to drill into the crater and sample minerals from the crater floor. But it has all the features scientists would expect: the right ratio of crater width to depth, the height of the rims, and the height of the central uplift — a mound in the center created by rocks and sediments forced up from the impact pressure . The journal Science Advances published the study on Thursday. “The discovery of a terrestrial impact crater is always important because they are very rare in the geologic record. There are fewer than 200 confirmed impact structures on Earth and several potential candidates that have yet to be definitively confirmed,” said Mark Boslough, research professor of Earth and in Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico. He was not involved in this research but agreed that it was probably caused by asteroids. Boslough said the most important aspect of this discovery is that it was an example of a submarine impact crater, of which there are only a few known examples. “The opportunity to study an underwater impact crater of this size will help us understand the process of oceanic impacts, which are the most common but least well preserved or understood.”

Cascading effects

The crater is 8 kilometers (5 miles) wide, and Nicholson believes it was likely caused by an asteroid more than 400 meters (1,300 feet) wide that crashed into the Earth’s crust. Although much smaller than the city-sized asteroid that caused the 100-mile-wide Chicxulub crater that hit the coast of Mexico that led to the mass extinction of much of life on the planet, it’s still a pretty big space rock. “The (Nadir) impact would have serious consequences locally and regionally — at least in the Atlantic Ocean,” Nicholson explained via email. “There would be a big earthquake (magnitude 6.5 – 7 Richter), so significant ground shaking locally. The blast of air would have been heard around the globe and would have caused severe localized damage throughout the region. It would have generated an “extremely large” tsunami wave 3,200 feet (1 kilometer) high around the crater, which would have dissipated at a height of about five meters once it reached South America. By comparison, the mid-air explosion of a much smaller 50-meter-wide asteroid in 1908 in Russia, known as the Tunguska event, flattened a forest over an area of ​​1,000 square kilometers. “At about 400 meters, the blast of air (that caused the crater off West Africa) would have been orders of magnitude larger.” Information from microfossils in nearby exploration wells indicates that the crater formed about 66 million years ago — at the end of the Cretaceous period. However, there is still uncertainty — a margin or error of about 1 million years — about its exact age. Nicholson said it’s possible the asteroid strike was connected to the Chicxulub impact, or it could just be a coincidence — an asteroid of that size would hit Earth every 700,000 years.
If connected, the asteroid could be the result of a breakup of a parent asteroid near Earth — with the separate fragments scattered during a previous Earth orbit, or it was possible that it was part of a longer shower of asteroids that hit Earth in a period of about a million years. “Getting the exact age is really critical to testing it — again, it’s only possible with drilling.” Even if it connected, it would have been exacerbated by Chicxulub’s impact, but would still have added to the overall cascading effect, he said. “Understanding the exact nature of the relationship with Chicxulub (if any) is important to understanding what was going on in the inner solar system at that time and raises some interesting new questions,” Nicholson said. “If there were two impacts at the same time, could there be other craters out there, and what was the cascading effect of the multiple impacts?”

title: “Crater Nadir Scientists Discover 5 Mile Wide Undersea Crater Created As Dinosaurs Died Out Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-07” author: “Oscar Ferrante”

Uisdean Nicholson, assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, happened upon the crater by accident — he was examining seismic survey data for another project on the tectonic divide between South America and Africa and found evidence of the crater under 400 meters of bottom sediment . “While interpreting the data, (I encountered) this very unusual crater-like feature, unlike anything I had ever seen before,” he said. To be absolutely sure the crater was caused by an asteroid impact, he said it would be necessary to drill into the crater and sample minerals from the crater floor. But it has all the features scientists would expect: the right ratio of crater width to depth, the height of the rims, and the height of the central uplift — a mound in the center created by rocks and sediments forced up from the impact pressure . The journal Science Advances published the study on Thursday. “The discovery of a terrestrial impact crater is always important because they are very rare in the geologic record. There are fewer than 200 confirmed impact structures on Earth and several potential candidates that have yet to be definitively confirmed,” said Mark Boslough, research professor of Earth and in Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico. He was not involved in this research but agreed that it was probably caused by asteroids. Boslough said the most important aspect of this discovery is that it was an example of a submarine impact crater, of which there are only a few known examples. “The opportunity to study an underwater impact crater of this size will help us understand the process of oceanic impacts, which are the most common but least well preserved or understood.”

Cascading effects

The crater is 8 kilometers (5 miles) wide, and Nicholson believes it was likely caused by an asteroid more than 400 meters (1,300 feet) wide that crashed into the Earth’s crust. Although much smaller than the city-sized asteroid that caused the 100-mile-wide Chicxulub crater that hit the coast of Mexico that led to the mass extinction of much of life on the planet, it’s still a pretty big space rock. “The (Nadir) impact would have serious consequences locally and regionally — at least in the Atlantic Ocean,” Nicholson explained via email. “There would be a big earthquake (magnitude 6.5 – 7 Richter), so significant ground shaking locally. The blast of air would have been heard around the globe and would have caused severe localized damage throughout the region. It would have generated an “extremely large” tsunami wave 3,200 feet (1 kilometer) high around the crater, which would have dissipated at a height of about five meters once it reached South America. By comparison, the mid-air explosion of a much smaller 50-meter-wide asteroid in 1908 in Russia, known as the Tunguska event, flattened a forest over an area of ​​1,000 square kilometers. “At about 400 meters, the blast of air (that caused the crater off West Africa) would have been orders of magnitude larger.” Information from microfossils in nearby exploration wells indicates that the crater formed about 66 million years ago — at the end of the Cretaceous period. However, there is still uncertainty — a margin or error of about 1 million years — about its exact age. Nicholson said it’s possible the asteroid strike was connected to the Chicxulub impact, or it could just be a coincidence — an asteroid of that size would hit Earth every 700,000 years.
If connected, the asteroid could be the result of a breakup of a parent asteroid near Earth — with the separate fragments scattered during a previous Earth orbit, or it was possible that it was part of a longer shower of asteroids that hit Earth in a period of about a million years. “Getting the exact age is really critical to testing it — again, it’s only possible with drilling.” Even if it connected, it would have been exacerbated by Chicxulub’s impact, but would still have added to the overall cascading effect, he said. “Understanding the exact nature of the relationship with Chicxulub (if any) is important to understanding what was going on in the inner solar system at that time and raises some interesting new questions,” Nicholson said. “If there were two impacts at the same time, could there be other craters out there, and what was the cascading effect of the multiple impacts?”

title: “Crater Nadir Scientists Discover 5 Mile Wide Undersea Crater Created As Dinosaurs Died Out Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-14” author: “Michael Wurth”

Uisdean Nicholson, assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, happened upon the crater by accident — he was examining seismic survey data for another project on the tectonic divide between South America and Africa and found evidence of the crater under 400 meters of bottom sediment . “While interpreting the data, (I encountered) this very unusual crater-like feature, unlike anything I had ever seen before,” he said. To be absolutely sure the crater was caused by an asteroid impact, he said it would be necessary to drill into the crater and sample minerals from the crater floor. But it has all the features scientists would expect: the right ratio of crater width to depth, the height of the rims, and the height of the central uplift — a mound in the center created by rocks and sediments forced up from the impact pressure . The journal Science Advances published the study on Thursday. “The discovery of a terrestrial impact crater is always important because they are very rare in the geologic record. There are fewer than 200 confirmed impact structures on Earth and several potential candidates that have yet to be definitively confirmed,” said Mark Boslough, research professor of Earth and in Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico. He was not involved in this research but agreed that it was probably caused by asteroids. Boslough said the most important aspect of this discovery is that it was an example of a submarine impact crater, of which there are only a few known examples. “The opportunity to study an underwater impact crater of this size will help us understand the process of oceanic impacts, which are the most common but least well preserved or understood.”

Cascading effects

The crater is 8 kilometers (5 miles) wide, and Nicholson believes it was likely caused by an asteroid more than 400 meters (1,300 feet) wide that crashed into the Earth’s crust. Although much smaller than the city-sized asteroid that caused the 100-mile-wide Chicxulub crater that hit the coast of Mexico that led to the mass extinction of much of life on the planet, it’s still a pretty big space rock. “The (Nadir) impact would have serious consequences locally and regionally — at least in the Atlantic Ocean,” Nicholson explained via email. “There would be a big earthquake (magnitude 6.5 – 7 Richter), so significant ground shaking locally. The blast of air would have been heard around the globe and would have caused severe localized damage throughout the region. It would have generated an “extremely large” tsunami wave 3,200 feet (1 kilometer) high around the crater, which would have dissipated at a height of about five meters once it reached South America. By comparison, the mid-air explosion of a much smaller 50-meter-wide asteroid in 1908 in Russia, known as the Tunguska event, flattened a forest over an area of ​​1,000 square kilometers. “At about 400 meters, the blast of air (that caused the crater off West Africa) would have been orders of magnitude larger.” Information from microfossils in nearby exploration wells indicates that the crater formed about 66 million years ago — at the end of the Cretaceous period. However, there is still uncertainty — a margin or error of about 1 million years — about its exact age. Nicholson said it’s possible the asteroid strike was connected to the Chicxulub impact, or it could just be a coincidence — an asteroid of that size would hit Earth every 700,000 years.
If connected, the asteroid could be the result of a breakup of a parent asteroid near Earth — with the separate fragments scattered during a previous Earth orbit, or it was possible that it was part of a longer shower of asteroids that hit Earth in a period of about a million years. “Getting the exact age is really critical to testing it — again, it’s only possible with drilling.” Even if it connected, it would have been exacerbated by Chicxulub’s impact, but would still have added to the overall cascading effect, he said. “Understanding the exact nature of the relationship with Chicxulub (if any) is important to understanding what was going on in the inner solar system at that time and raises some interesting new questions,” Nicholson said. “If there were two impacts at the same time, could there be other craters out there, and what was the cascading effect of the multiple impacts?”

title: “Crater Nadir Scientists Discover 5 Mile Wide Undersea Crater Created As Dinosaurs Died Out Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-11” author: “Roland Brown”

Uisdean Nicholson, assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, happened upon the crater by accident — he was examining seismic survey data for another project on the tectonic divide between South America and Africa and found evidence of the crater under 400 meters of bottom sediment . “While interpreting the data, (I encountered) this very unusual crater-like feature, unlike anything I had ever seen before,” he said. To be absolutely sure the crater was caused by an asteroid impact, he said it would be necessary to drill into the crater and sample minerals from the crater floor. But it has all the features scientists would expect: the right ratio of crater width to depth, the height of the rims, and the height of the central uplift — a mound in the center created by rocks and sediments forced up from the impact pressure . The journal Science Advances published the study on Thursday. “The discovery of a terrestrial impact crater is always important because they are very rare in the geologic record. There are fewer than 200 confirmed impact structures on Earth and several potential candidates that have yet to be definitively confirmed,” said Mark Boslough, research professor of Earth and in Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico. He was not involved in this research but agreed that it was probably caused by asteroids. Boslough said the most important aspect of this discovery is that it was an example of a submarine impact crater, of which there are only a few known examples. “The opportunity to study an underwater impact crater of this size will help us understand the process of oceanic impacts, which are the most common but least well preserved or understood.”

Cascading effects

The crater is 8 kilometers (5 miles) wide, and Nicholson believes it was likely caused by an asteroid more than 400 meters (1,300 feet) wide that crashed into the Earth’s crust. Although much smaller than the city-sized asteroid that caused the 100-mile-wide Chicxulub crater that hit the coast of Mexico that led to the mass extinction of much of life on the planet, it’s still a pretty big space rock. “The (Nadir) impact would have serious consequences locally and regionally — at least in the Atlantic Ocean,” Nicholson explained via email. “There would be a big earthquake (magnitude 6.5 – 7 Richter), so significant ground shaking locally. The blast of air would have been heard around the globe and would have caused severe localized damage throughout the region. It would have generated an “extremely large” tsunami wave 3,200 feet (1 kilometer) high around the crater, which would have dissipated at a height of about five meters once it reached South America. By comparison, the mid-air explosion of a much smaller 50-meter-wide asteroid in 1908 in Russia, known as the Tunguska event, flattened a forest over an area of ​​1,000 square kilometers. “At about 400 meters, the blast of air (that caused the crater off West Africa) would have been orders of magnitude larger.” Information from microfossils in nearby exploration wells indicates that the crater formed about 66 million years ago — at the end of the Cretaceous period. However, there is still uncertainty — a margin or error of about 1 million years — about its exact age. Nicholson said it’s possible the asteroid strike was connected to the Chicxulub impact, or it could just be a coincidence — an asteroid of that size would hit Earth every 700,000 years.
If connected, the asteroid could be the result of a breakup of a parent asteroid near Earth — with the separate fragments scattered during a previous Earth orbit, or it was possible that it was part of a longer shower of asteroids that hit Earth in a period of about a million years. “Getting the exact age is really critical to testing it — again, it’s only possible with drilling.” Even if it connected, it would have been exacerbated by Chicxulub’s impact, but would still have added to the overall cascading effect, he said. “Understanding the exact nature of the relationship with Chicxulub (if any) is important to understanding what was going on in the inner solar system at that time and raises some interesting new questions,” Nicholson said. “If there were two impacts at the same time, could there be other craters out there, and what was the cascading effect of the multiple impacts?”

title: “Crater Nadir Scientists Discover 5 Mile Wide Undersea Crater Created As Dinosaurs Died Out Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-20” author: “Russell Holden”

Uisdean Nicholson, assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, happened upon the crater by accident — he was examining seismic survey data for another project on the tectonic divide between South America and Africa and found evidence of the crater under 400 meters of bottom sediment . “While interpreting the data, (I encountered) this very unusual crater-like feature, unlike anything I had ever seen before,” he said. To be absolutely sure the crater was caused by an asteroid impact, he said it would be necessary to drill into the crater and sample minerals from the crater floor. But it has all the features scientists would expect: the right ratio of crater width to depth, the height of the rims, and the height of the central uplift — a mound in the center created by rocks and sediments forced up from the impact pressure . The journal Science Advances published the study on Thursday. “The discovery of a terrestrial impact crater is always important because they are very rare in the geologic record. There are fewer than 200 confirmed impact structures on Earth and several potential candidates that have yet to be definitively confirmed,” said Mark Boslough, research professor of Earth and in Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico. He was not involved in this research but agreed that it was probably caused by asteroids. Boslough said the most important aspect of this discovery is that it was an example of a submarine impact crater, of which there are only a few known examples. “The opportunity to study an underwater impact crater of this size will help us understand the process of oceanic impacts, which are the most common but least well preserved or understood.”

Cascading effects

The crater is 8 kilometers (5 miles) wide, and Nicholson believes it was likely caused by an asteroid more than 400 meters (1,300 feet) wide that crashed into the Earth’s crust. Although much smaller than the city-sized asteroid that caused the 100-mile-wide Chicxulub crater that hit the coast of Mexico that led to the mass extinction of much of life on the planet, it’s still a pretty big space rock. “The (Nadir) impact would have serious consequences locally and regionally — at least in the Atlantic Ocean,” Nicholson explained via email. “There would be a big earthquake (magnitude 6.5 – 7 Richter), so significant ground shaking locally. The blast of air would have been heard around the globe and would have caused severe localized damage throughout the region. It would have generated an “extremely large” tsunami wave 3,200 feet (1 kilometer) high around the crater, which would have dissipated at a height of about five meters once it reached South America. By comparison, the mid-air explosion of a much smaller 50-meter-wide asteroid in 1908 in Russia, known as the Tunguska event, flattened a forest over an area of ​​1,000 square kilometers. “At about 400 meters, the blast of air (that caused the crater off West Africa) would have been orders of magnitude larger.” Information from microfossils in nearby exploration wells indicates that the crater formed about 66 million years ago — at the end of the Cretaceous period. However, there is still uncertainty — a margin or error of about 1 million years — about its exact age. Nicholson said it’s possible the asteroid strike was connected to the Chicxulub impact, or it could just be a coincidence — an asteroid of that size would hit Earth every 700,000 years.
If connected, the asteroid could be the result of a breakup of a parent asteroid near Earth — with the separate fragments scattered during a previous Earth orbit, or it was possible that it was part of a longer shower of asteroids that hit Earth in a period of about a million years. “Getting the exact age is really critical to testing it — again, it’s only possible with drilling.” Even if it connected, it would have been exacerbated by Chicxulub’s impact, but would still have added to the overall cascading effect, he said. “Understanding the exact nature of the relationship with Chicxulub (if any) is important to understanding what was going on in the inner solar system at that time and raises some interesting new questions,” Nicholson said. “If there were two impacts at the same time, could there be other craters out there, and what was the cascading effect of the multiple impacts?”