When you buy through links on our site , we may realize an affiliate committal . Here ’s how it works .
researcher in Canada ’s western Arctic have found grounds of a crater that formed when a huge meteorite slammed into Earth trillion of long time ago .
Measuring about 15 miles ( 25 kilometers ) across , the formation was nominate the Prince Albert impact crater after the peninsula where it was discovered . researcher do n’t know precisely when it was create , but evidence evoke the volcanic crater is between 130 million and 350 million years sometime , according to a statement from the University of Saskatchewan .
A river gorge cut into the tundra of northwestern Victoria Island shows steeply tilted sedimentary rock strata. These deformed beds represent the central uplift caused by rebound after the meteor impact that formed the Prince Albert crater.
Meteors are fragments of asteroids or comet that enter Earth ’s standard atmosphere at high speed ; most are little , some as tiny as a cereal of Baroness Dudevant , so they discintegrate in the atmosphere , and only rarely are they large enough to make it to Earth ’s surface . Whenmeteors slam into Earth , they are calledmeteorites .
A team of geologist spotted this new identified meteorite crater while surveying the region for potential energy and mineral resources . They were initially connive by steeply slant strata seeable in river gorges and other features in the flat tundra of northwest Victoria Island . [ Photos : Prince Albert Impact Crater ]
" Unless you recognize the telltale clues , you would n’t know what you were looking at , " researcher Brian Pratt excuse in the statement . " You might see a crew of wiped out rocks and inquire how they get there , but we found abundant shatter strobile . "
A river gorge cut into the tundra of northwestern Victoria Island shows steeply tilted sedimentary rock strata. These deformed beds represent the central uplift caused by rebound after the meteor impact that formed the Prince Albert crater.
Shatter cone are airfoil features with typical wavy patterns that are acknowledge to be created only by the rattling power of a meteorite encroachment or an underground nuclear explosion . What ’s more , Pratt aver his function point that the feature of speech is round , which is characteristic of impact Crater .
" Impact crater like this give us clues into how the Earth ’s freshness is recycled and the swiftness of corrosion , and may be implicate in episodes of far-flung extinction of fauna in the geologic past , " Pratt said . " It ’s an exciting discovery . "
There are about 180 knownimpact craterson Earth . Geologists think they would find countless more if plate shifting , volcanic activity and erosion did n’t hide the grounds of most ancient impact .
Earlier this summer , researchers in Greenland documented perchance the oldest andlargest meteorite crater ever found on Earth . The crater , estimated to be 3 billion years previous , currently mensurate about 62 land mile ( 100 km ) across . But the researchers believe its breadth before erosion was belike more than 310 nautical mile ( 500 km ) — much bigger than the largest seeable crater , the 2 - billion - twelvemonth - old Vredefort crater in South Africa , which measures 186 naut mi ( 300 km ) across .
