Uisdean Nicholson, a geologist at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, discovered the crater somewhat by accident, while examining seismic reflection data from the seabed during a research project dedicated to seafloor spreading, the geologic process that caused the African and American continents to drift apart, thereby opening the Atlantic Ocean. 'These are preliminary simulations and need to be refined when we get more data,' Bray said, 'but they provide important new insights into the possible ocean depths in this area at the time of impact.' What does the crater look like?

According to Bray's calculations, the energy released from the impact that caused the Nadir crater would have been around 1,000 times greater than the tsunami caused by the underwater eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano in the Polynesian country of Tonga on Jan. The estimated size of the asteroid would put it roughly on par with asteroid Bennu, the target of the UArizona-led NASA asteroid sample return mission OSIRIS-REx. And if we have found one 'sibling' to Chicxulub, it opens the question: Are there others?” 'Although it is a lot smaller than the global cataclysm of the Chicxulub impact, Nadir will have contributed significantly to the local devastation. 'This would have generated a tsunami over 3,000 feet high, as well as an earthquake of more than magnitude 6.5,' Bray said.

The simulations suggest the crater was caused by the collision of a 1,300 foot-wide asteroid in 1,600 to 2,600 feet of water. Sarah Sutton/Lunar and Planetary Laboratory What impact would the asteroid have had?īray used computer simulations to determine what kind of collision took place and what the effects might have been. Veronica Bray, photographed here during a visit to Meteor Crater in Northern Arizona, is an expert on crater formation. If confirmed, the crater will be one of less than 20 confirmed marine impact craters found on Earth. The team believes the asteroid that created the newly discovered Nadir crater could have formed by breakup of a parent asteroid or by a swarm of asteroids in that time period. Named after a nearby seamount, the Nadir crater is buried up to 1,300 feet below the seabed about 250 miles off the coast of Guinea, West Africa. Veronica Bray, a research scientist in the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, who specializes in craters found throughout the solar system, is a co-author of a study in Science Advances detailing the discovery. Spanning more than 5 miles in diameter, the crater was discovered using seismic measurements, which allow scientists to probe what lies deep below Earth's surface. The team believes the crater was caused by an asteroid colliding with Earth around 66 million years ago – around the same time that the Chicxulub asteroid hit Earth off the coast of today's Yucatan, Mexico, and wiped out the dinosaurs.

Scientists have found evidence of an asteroid impact crater beneath the North Atlantic Ocean that could force researchers to rethink how the dinosaurs reached the end of their reign. A new study reporting the discovery of an asteroid impact crater buried under the seafloor off the coast of Africa lends support to the idea that more than one asteroid may have impacted Earth at the time the dinosaurs went extinct.

Depth of extinction impressions