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Letter

Nature Geoscience 1, 131–135 (1 February 2008) | doi:10.1038/ngeo103

Importance of pre-impact crustal structure for the asymmetry of the Chicxulub impact|[nbsp]|crater

Sean P. S. Gulick , Penny J. Barton , Gail L. Christeson , Joanna V. Morgan , Matthew McDonald , Keren Mendoza-Cervantes , Zulmacristina F. Pearson , Anusha Surendra , Jaime Urrutia-Fucugauchi , Peggy M. Vermeesch & Mike R. Warner

Impact craters are observed on the surfaces of all rocky planets and satellites in our Solar System; some impacts on Earth, such as the Cretaceous/Tertiary one that formed the Chicxulub impact crater, have been implicated in mass extinctions. The direction and angle of the impact—or its trajectory—is an important determinant of the severity of the consequent environmental damage, both in the downrange direction (direction bolide travels) and in the amount of material that enters the plume of material vaporized on impact.