Scientists have discovered a large asteroid that collided with Earth 66 million years ago and left a crater with a diameter of 9 kilometers.

New images of an impact crater beneath the Atlantic Ocean confirm it was caused by an asteroid that crashed into Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period, 66 million years ago.

9 km crater Nadir. located at a depth of 300 meters below the bottom of the Atlantic Oceanthat is, the same age as the 200-kilometer-wide Chicxulub impact crater in Mexico, the aftermath of which wiped out the dinosaurs.

The images helped researchers determine what happened in the minutes after the impact: the formation of an initial bowl-shaped crater, rocks that liquefied and flowed to the crater floor, and damage that spanned thousands of square meters. kilometers beyond the crater and a tsunami over 800 meters high that could cross the Atlantic Ocean. The results were published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

He Dr Wisdin Nicholson from Heriot-Watt University discovered the Nadir crater in 2022. while studying seismic reflection data from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Guinea, West Africa.

The data revealed a depression more than 8.5km wide, which Dr Nicholson suspected could be an asteroid impact crater.

He worked with planetary scientists and geologists from the UK and US to classify the crater: evidence suggested it was due to an asteroid hundreds of meters wide that collided with the planet about 66 million years agobut they couldn’t definitively confirm it until now.

TGS, a global geosciences company, collected high-resolution 3D seismic data and shared it with geologist Dr Nicholson. The data shows that the asteroid created the Nadir crater.

Dr Nicholson said in a statement: “There are approximately 20 confirmed marine craters in the world and none have been imaged in this level of detail. This is amazing.”

“Craters on the surface are usually highly eroded and we can only see what is exposed, while craters on other planetary bodies usually show only surface expression. This data allows us to obtain a full 3D image and remove layers of sediment.” observe the crater at all levels.

Incredible Dimensions

“Initially we thought the asteroid would be about 400 meters wide. Now we believe that Its width ranged from 450 to 500 m.due to the larger size of the crater as shown by the 3D data. We can say that it came from about 20 to 40 degrees to the northeast due to the thrust-induced spiral ridges surrounding the central peak of the crater; They are formed only after an oblique impact at a small angle. And we think it would have crashed into the Earth at about 20 km per second, or 72,000 km per houralthough we still need to confirm this with a new set of exposure models.”

Using the data, scientists created a graph of what happened in the seconds and minutes after impact.

Dr Nicholson said: “Following the impact and the formation of the central high, the soft sediments surrounding the crater flowed inwards towards the evacuated crater floor, creating a visible ‘rim’.

The shaking caused by the impact appears to have liquefied sediments beneath the seafloor on the plateau, leading to the formation of faults beneath the seafloor. The impact was also associated with large landslides as the edge of the plateau fell beneath the ocean.