Mysterious crater found in the ocean may be a new clue to the fate of dinosaurs

(ORDO NEWS) — The bottom of the ocean, as you know, is less studied than the surface of Mars. And when our team of scientists recently mapped the seafloor and the ancient deposits beneath it, we found what looks like an asteroid impact crater.

Surprisingly, the crater, named “Nadir” after the nearby volcano Nadir, is the same age as the Chicxulub impact, caused by a huge asteroid at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 66 million years ago, which wiped out dinosaurs and many other species.

The find, published in the journal Science Advances, raises the question of whether this crater could be related to Chicxulub in some way.

If confirmed, the crater would be of great scientific interest as it is one of a very small number of known marine asteroid impacts, providing unique new insights into what happens during such an impact.

The crater was discovered using “seismic reflection” as part of a larger project to reconstruct the tectonic separation of South America from Africa during the Cretaceous.

Seismic reflection works in a similar way to ultrasound, sending pressure waves across the ocean and its bed and detecting the energy that is reflected back.

This data allows geophysicists and geologists to reconstruct the architecture of rocks and sediments.

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