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Multi-ringed revelation

Nature volume 390, pages 439–440 (1997)Cite this article

The Chicxulub crater is the remnant of a meteorite impact that is blamed for killing off the dinosaurs. A new seismological survey shows that it is smaller than many scientists had thought, and extends deeper than anyone had suspected.

Planetary science conferences for several years have been disturbed by sometimes acrimonious exchanges between rival investigators of the Chicxulub impact structure. Created by a giant meteorite impact 65 million years ago, this huge scar in the rocks beneath Mexico is implicated in the death of the dinosaurs and other biological mayhem that ended the Cretaceous era. The arguments are not centred around the reality of the impact — that was settled to nearly everyone's satisfaction years ago — but on just how big the structure really is, and therefore how lethal the event was. Now, on page 472of this issue1, the rivals appear to have buried the hatchet and joined together behind a new and surprising interpretation of the structure, one that ties it more closely to some of the largest impact scars observed on the Moon and other planets.

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Figure 1: The Chicxulub structure, just before collapse of the transient crater, and after crater formation (fault displacements greatly exaggerated).
Figure 2: Venusian contusion — the 150-km-diameter multi-ringed impact basin Klenova, similar to many others on Venus and the Moon.

ROBERT STROM

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  1. the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, 85721, USA

    H. J. Melosh

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Melosh, H. Multi-ringed revelation. Nature 390, 439–440 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/37218

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