Chris Kirkland
The discovery dears thus the Yarrabubba impact structure, which is 2.2 billion years old, from the list of older craters on Earth.
A team of geologists from the University of Curtin and the Western Australia Geological Service have identified the Ancient meteorites impact crater in the worldin the Pilbara region, northwest of Australia. According to the new published in Nature Communications, the crater is about 3.47 billion years.
This discovery rewrites the book of records, surpassing the previous oldest crater known in More than billion years. The newly identified crater, which is not visible as a traditional bowl depression due to its age, was discovered through the presence of “split cones”.
These distinct geological formations are created only under extreme pressurelike that of an impact of meteorite or a nuclear explosion. It is estimated that the crater has At least 100 km widewhich suggests that the meteorite that created it traveled at speeds of over 36,000 km/h. Such an impact would have caused catastrophic destruction throughout the planet.
“Before our discovery, the oldest impact crater was 2.2 billion years old, so this is by far the oldest crater ever found on Earth,” said Tim Johnson, co-author of the study. The previous holder of the record, the Yarrabubba Impact StructureIt is located about 800 km south of the newly discovered crater, says.
The age of the old crater puts it in a chaotic period of land history in what colossal impacts were frequent. During this time, the Earth was often hit by massive space rocks, including a body of the Mars dimension that FORMED THE MOON About 4.5 billion years ago.
Unlike the moon, which still has the scars of such impacts, the dynamic processes of the Earth’s surface, such as the plaque tectonics and erosion, have erased much of this initial story.
The discovery not only fills a gap in the geological record, but also suggests that older craters can still be found. The research team believes that impacts of this magnitude probably influenced the evolution of the earth, potentially contributing to the cracker formation – Great stable earth masses that formed the base of the continents.
“The enormous amount of energy of this impact may have played a role in the formation of the primitive terrestrial crust, pushing a part of the crust Under another or forcing the magma to climb from the cloak to the surface, ”said Chris Kirkland, co-author of the study.
