Greenland may contain oldest meteorite crater on Earth
JUL 03, 2012
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.026141
MSNBC : A giant meteorite may have struck Greenland some 3 billion years ago, according a recent study by Adam Garde, a Danish researcher who published his findings this month in Earth and Planetary Science Letters. Although the crater has shrunk through erosion from an estimated size of about 500 km in diameter to the 100 km it measures today, it displays several key features of a meteorite impact: crushed rocks in a circular pattern that could have been caused by the impact’s shock waves, deposits of potassium–feldspar that could have been liquefied only at very high heat, and evidence of weathering by hot water that was probably due to ocean water rushing into the crater after the meteorite struck, writes Douglas Main for MSNBC. The devastating effects of such a meteorite strike are contemplated by Stephen Andrew in his blog Zingularity.
© 2012 American Institute of Physics
