Largest ever asteroid impact found in Australia

Scientists in Australia have discovered what they say is the largest asteroid impact area ever found.

 Excerpt from bbc.com




The 400-kilometre (250-mile) wide area is buried deep in the earth’s crust and consists of two separate impact scars.
The

team behind the discovery, from the Australian National University

(ANU), said the asteroid broke into two before it hit, with each

fragment more than 10km across.

The impact is thought to have occurred at least 300 million years ago.

View of Australia from space

The

surface crater has long since disappeared from central Australia’s

Warburton Basin but geophysical modelling below the surface found

evidence of two massive impacts, said Dr Andrew Glikson, who led the ANU

team.

“It would have been curtains for many life species on the planet at the time,” said Dr Glikson.

Image of an asteroid in space

But the team, which published its findings in the geology journal Tectonophysics, has not been able to connect the impact to any known extinction.

“It’s

a mystery – we can’t find an extinction event that matches these

collisions,” said Dr Glikson. “I have a suspicion the impact could be

older than 300 million years.”

Dr Andrew Glikson examines a sample of suevite –

a rock with partially melted material formed during an impact

The rocks around the impact

zone are roughly 300 to 600 million years old, but a layer of ash that

would have been thrown up by the impact has not been detected as

sediment in rock layers from the same period.

The large meteorite

believed to have killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago corresponds

to a layer of sediment in rocks around the world.

“Large impacts

like these may have had a far more significant role in the Earth’s

evolution than previously thought,” Dr Glikson said.
The apparent

impact zone in the Warburton Basin was discovered by accident while

scientists were drilling 2km under the Earth’s surface for a geothermal

research project.

The dig returned traces of rock that had been

turned to glass by extreme temperature and pressure, consistent with a

massive impact.

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Largest ever asteroid impact found in Australia