The news that the world’s largest asteroid impact crater has been discovered is surprising, if true. Researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) believe they have found evidence that the fall of an asteroid buried near the Australian town of Deniliquin was the largest asteroid ever found on Earth and may have triggered glaciation that killed 85 percent of the planets. world population. The research has been published in the journal Tectonophysicals.

University of New South Wales adjunct professor and asteroid impact researcher Andrew Glickson, nicknamed the Deniliquin structure, believes the crater is 323 miles in diameter, nearly twice the size of the current record-holding Wredefort Impact structure in South Africa.

Glikson argues that the impact that caused the crater may have occurred during the mass extinction. “I think it may have triggered the Hirnantian glaciation stage, which lasted specifically 445.2 to 433.8 million years ago,” he wrote in his statement. “This massive glaciation and mass extinction wiped out about 85 percent of species on the planet.”

Massive asteroid impacts can have devastating consequences for life on Earth; The sudden impact not only causes waves of destruction, but the debris fields and ensuing atmospheric noise can reduce the Sun’s density, causing it to cool. Glikson concedes that the crater may be even older, but says that when the asteroid fell, it struck the eastern part of the continent of Gondwana, which existed for some time before splitting off into many continents, including Australia.

It is difficult to find a buried crater of this size on the plain due to erosion and sediment movement. Even the removal of Earth’s tectonic plates could alter the crater. Glickson says an asteroid impact creates a crater with its core rising, much like a drop of water splashes upward when a pebble hits a puddle.

“This central raised dome is a key feature of large impact structures,” he writes. “But it can decay over thousands and millions of years, making the structure difficult to identify.”

By understanding the geophysical composition of materials ejected from the crater during the impact, scientists can study layers of “shock ejection” in different parts of the world. There are currently 38 approved and 43 potential impact structures in Gondwana and Australia.

In 1995, Glickson’s colleague Tony Yates suggested that the magnetic structures in New South Wales were probably a massive but hidden shock structure. Glikson wrote that he believes that by analyzing updated geophysical data from the region between 2015 and 2020, he “confirmed the existence” of a Denilikin structure with a seismically defined dome at its center.

To support his statement, Glikson cites a series of illustrative physical events. Magnetic readings showing a symmetrical fluctuation may have resulted from extremely high shock temperatures, a central region of low magnetic field consistent with deep deformation above the mantle dome (top of the dome is shallower than the top of the regional mantle), Indicators include: Radial at the putative center characteristic of large shock structures faults.

According to the research, the central uplift and the associated bulky rocks were eroded. However, the authors argue that the interpretation of Deniliquin features is “incompatible” with structural trends.

“Most of the evidence for the Deniliquin impact is based on geophysical data from the surface,” Glikson wrote. “To prove the effect, we will only need to gather physical evidence of the shock that can occur when drilling deep into the structure.”

As there is no massive drilling operation planned, we will have to attribute the Deniliquin news to the possibility of the formation of a massive asteroid impact crater with colossal consequences. Source