World’s largest Asteroid Impact Crater: World’s largest asteroid impact crater found here

[ad_1]

Researchers at the University of South Wales (UNSW) have found perhaps the world’s largest asteroid impact crater in Australia. Researchers believe that this site in the city of Deniliquin is evidence of the oldest buried asteroid impact in the world. This research has been published in Tectophysics magazine. The newly discovered impact crater has been named the Deniliquin Formation.

Andrew Glixon, assistant professor and asteroid impact researcher at the University of South Wales (UNSW), believes the crater is 323 miles in diameter, almost twice the size of the current record-holding crater, the Vredefort impact structure in South Africa.

What makes this discovery interesting is finding such a huge crater buried in plain sight. According to scientists, due to erosion and constant sediment movement, the existence of such a huge crater is difficult to explain because the Earth’s changing tectonic plates can also alter the crater.

Glixon says that when an asteroid collides, it creates a crater with a raised core, just as a drop of water bounces upward when a pebble hits a pool.

By understanding the geophysical composition of the materials ejected from the crater during the impact, scientists can study layers of “impact ejecta” in different areas around the world. Gondwana and Australia were and are home to 38 confirmed and 43 possible impact structures.

[ad_2]

Source link