Discover the largest volcano crater known 100,000 years ago

Officially as of 2020, the only other impact crater discovered in China has been found in Xiuyan County, coastal Liaoning Province. It turns out that in the northeast of the country there was another country Gap even bigger. In fact, the largest known on earth From the past 100,000 years.

The news was presented in release NASA Earth Observatory. Apparently, after discovery and subsequent study, Scientists have confirmed that a geological structure was formed in the Minor Xingan mountain range as a result of the collision of a space rock with the Earth.

Work recently published in the magazine Meteorites and planetary sciencestalks about a crater (Yilan) about 1.85 km wide that likely formed about 46,000 to 53,000 years ago, based on radiocarbon dating of coal and organic lake sediments at the site.

For their study, the scientists collected sediment samples by extracting a drill core from the center of the crater. As shown in Forbes:

Under more than 100 meters of layered lake and swamp sediments, the team found a slab about 320 meters thick of fractured granite, a granite composed of many rock fragments held together in a matrix. This rock has scars emanating from a meteorite impact. For example, rock fragments show signs of melting and recrystallization during impact, as the granite is rapidly heated and then cooled. Other fragments of the rock survived this fusion process, and instead contain “shocked” quartz that shattered into a distinct pattern when the space rock shattered.

In addition, NASA added that teardrop-shaped shards of glass and pieces of glass punctured with small holes created by gas bubbles were also detected. Don’t think of anything “weird”in both cases are characteristics that indicate a very severe impact is occurring there.

According to Chen Ming, one of the paper’s authors and a researcher at the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry:

Part of the southern edge of the Yilan Crater is missing, so the geological structure appears to be crescent-shaped from above. These crescent-shaped impact craters are relatively rare on Earth.

Fantastic discovery made Thanks to the Landsat-8 satellite, which in 2021 captured an amazing shot of the northern edge of the crater.[[[[Live ScienceAnd the Forbes]