Crater proposes the extinction hypothesis through multiple influences

enormous asteroid It collided with Earth 66 million years ago, causing a catastrophe that reverberated across the planet. However, I am not talking about the bolid that fell in the Yucatan Peninsula, which is generally attributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs, but about else An asteroid, which left a huge crater off the coast of Africa, which would have hit us almost at the same time.

For decades, scientists have been pondering what led to the extinction of the Great Remedies, and the hypothesis that the mass extinction event was caused by an asteroid (comet hypothesis ruled out) that left Earth behind. Chicxulub Cratervery recent and even today, new data appears and supports the idea.

It is known that the object that created the crater was at least 10 kilometers in diameter, and the explosion was estimated from a collision with 100,000 gigatons, or 4.5 billion Hiroshima bombs that exploded simultaneously. The ocean waters were acidified, tons of sulfur and debris were released into the atmosphere preventing sunlight from passing through, lowering the planet’s temperature, not to mention throwing a lot of debris out of the ground, some of which went back to the planet. The surface, air and fires caught on return, causing fires in at least 70% of the forests.

As a result, most biomes at that time became extinct, including all non-flying dinosaurs and other species. However, the sediments and material provided a rapid (on a cosmic scale) recovery for life, as we can attest.

In any case, the Chicxulub asteroid was previously thought to be unique, so the chance of discovering an 8-kilometer crater underwater in the highlands of Guinea, West Africa, is of interest to researchers.

Crater of a volcano created by an asteroid with a length of 400 meters

The formation, which scientists have called the Nader Crater, would have been formed by an asteroid about 400 meters in diameter, which, although much smaller than Chicxulub, was not necessarily the least life-threatening at the time.

The sediments analyzed indicate that they collided with Earth around the same time as the impact in Mexico, about 66 million years ago, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1 million.

Alone, earthquakes would have occurred along the entire African coast, and a tidal wave swept through most of the Atlantic Ocean, which at that time was It was much narrower; Continental drift between what would become Africa and South America, after the separation of the supercontinent Pangea, was still ongoing, when compared to the current location of parts of the Earth.

Diagram of how the Nader Crater formed (Credit: Republic of Guinea / TGS)

secondly Osden NicholsonNader crater was discovered by chance while his team analyzed data for another study, about continental drift and the separation of the African and South American continents.

Nicholson acknowledges that even if a rare asteroid smashed into Earth at the same time as Chicxulub asteroid, the Yucatan collision would have overwhelmed him, given the level of global consequences. On the other hand, if both struts are proven to be related, this changes knowledge of as such This event happened.

One possibility, for example, is that it is possible that both asteroids have dismembered portions of a much larger orb, while another points to the possibility that Earth may have been heavily attacked by asteroids over a long period of time.

Of course, there is also the hypothesis that, given the margin of error, both asteroids did not collide with Earth at the same time, because the odds of an event of this magnitude occurring are one in 700,000 years. And if both craters formed at the same time, there could be other craters around the world, ready for discovery.

the reviewer

NICHOLSON, U., BRAY, VJ, GULICK, SPS, ADUOMAHOR, B. We run a crater off the coast of West Africa: an impact structure of the Cretaceous-Paleogene filter. science progressVolume 8, Issue 33, 13 pages, 17 Aug 2022. Available over here.

source: ExtremeAnd the CNN