Abstract
When large meteorites strike the Earth's surface they form impact craters. These features have been intensively studied on land during the past two decades1 and the geological signatures of impact events are reasonably well understood. In contrast, the effects of the impact of large meteorites into the 70% of the Earth's surface which is covered by ocean are poorly understood2,3, and until now no examples have been identified. Here we report the identification of an underwater extraterrestrial impact crater on the North Atlantic continental shelf, 200km south-east of Nova Scotia, Canada. The impact, in early Eocene time, produced a complex structure with a submarine crater, a central structural high and an inner topographic ring. The crater is filled with breccia, which exhibits shock deformation features. Lack of enrichment of the melt rocks in siderophile elements compared with basement rocks and a slight enrichment in iridium, suggest that the impactor was either a stony meteorite or a cometary nucleus. The diameter of the impactor is estimated to be ∼2–3 km.
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References
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Jansa, L., Pe-Piper, G. Identification of an underwater extraterrestrial impact crater. Nature 327, 612–614 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1038/327612a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/327612a0
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