NASA scientists plunged into the ocean floor, in the heart of the oldest impact crater on Earth, Chicxulub, which is believed by most of the scientific community, left from the impact of a huge meteorite that destroyed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
Scientists today released the results of the first drilling expedition to Chicxulub, an ancient impact crater in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. It is believed that this crater was formed by the fall of a huge meteorite, which led to irreversible climatic changes that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
The discovery of the researchers confirmed that granite boulders from the bowels of the earth's crust are indeed located on top of sedimentary rocks, which means that the hypothesis of the formation of radial craters has finally been confirmed. And even if Chicxulub is the only one of the surviving craters of this kind on earth, there are very, very many of them on other planets of the solar system. For example, last month NASA scientists suggested that peak rings within the Oriental Impact Basin on the Moon likely formed in the same way.
A team of researchers delved into the bowels of the earth to investigate the epicenter of one of the world's most significant cataclysms. To get into the heart of the crater, scientists had to go 670 deep into the rock lying under the seabed, for which the team brought in a drilling platform. Samples at this depth contain fragments of the very bedrock granite rocks that escaped from the Earth from the impact of a huge asteroid.
Before diving deep into the sea, they have already tested the technology of drilling on land. But this is the first time that researchers have dived into the so-called "peak ring" - a radial stone ridge inside the impact crater itself. Such craters have been found on the Moon, Mars and even Mercury, but this is the first time such studies are being conducted on Earth.
A close examination of the peak ring rocks will allow scientists to test the crater formation model and determine if it was one of the first sites to show microscopic fauna after impact. The peak ring itself is formed in just a few minutes. Immediately after the impact, the molten mantle rises to a height of about 10 km, and then collapses downward, forming the same radial ridge.
You can observe something similar if you throw a large cobblestone into the water. After that, the rocks cool down and a peak ring is formed, consisting of pieces of root rock. And in the following hours, an oceanic tsunami brings masses of bottom sand into a huge crater, after which lime deposits begin, which lasts for millions of years.