ScienceDaily (Oct. 15, 2009) — A mysterious basin off the coast of India could be the largest, multi-ringed impact crater the world has ever seen. And if a new study is right, it may have been responsible for killing the dinosaurs off 65 million years ago.
Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University and a team of researchers took a close look at the massive Shiva basin, a submerged depression west of India that is intensely mined for its oil and gas resources. Some complex craters are among the most productive hydrocarbon sites on the planet. Chatterjee will present his research at this month's Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Portland, Oregon.
“If we are right, this is the largest crater known on our planet,” Chatterjee said. “A bolide of this size, perhaps 40 kilometers (25 miles) in diameter creates its own tectonics.”
By contrast, the object that struck the Yucatan Peninsula, and is commonly thought to have killed the dinosaurs was between 8 and 10 kilometers (5 and 6.2 miles) wide.
Originally posted by masterp
An asteroid or an ancient super weapon? let's not forget all the Indian mythology...
Originally posted by StingrayCrazy
4 times bigger? I don't think so...
The Chicxulub crater is over 100 miles wide...
A mass extinction about 200 million years ago which destroyed at least half of the species on Earth happened very quickly and is demonstrated in the fossil record by the collapse of one-celled organisms called protists, according to new research led by a University of Washington paleontologist.
There is no definitive evidence yet on what caused the demise of so many species, Ward said. However, the suddenness of the event is similar to two better-known mass extinctions -- one 250 million years ago at the end of the Permian period that killed some 90 percent of all species, the other 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period that sent the dinosaurs into oblivion.
The extinction 200 million years ago, at the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic periods, killed the last of the mammal-like reptiles that once roamed the Earth and left mainly dinosaurs, Ward said. That extinction happened in less than 10,000 years -- in the blink of an eye, geologically speaking.
Originally posted by Watcher-In-The-Shadows
Could have been a case of multiple impacts *one near Mexico, one near India*. Just a thought.
Originally posted by Arbitrageur
I thought scientists had measured the iridium layer thickness in 65 million year old sediments got thicker the closer to the Yucatan peninsula they got, which would seem to confirm that was the site for that impact, but I'm open to seeing new evidence. I don't see any such evidence in the article linked.
Thick, and spectacular, tsunami deposits of EK boundary age are located in Cuba and Haiti. In Cuba the tsunamis formation is 450 meters thick and contains blocks up to 2 meters in diameter. So, A Caribbean location for the impact crater could be inferred. And, debate as to the origin of the iridium anomaly was soon to cease: In Haiti, the terminal sediment layer of the Cretaceous contains, mixed together with the iridium anomaly and irrefutable evidence for a bolide: abundant shock-metamorphosed quartz grains, and tektites
But keep in mind that these craters are more or less on opposite sides of the earth. That doesn't rule out the multiple impact theory but it doesn't support it.