Scientists using satellites have mapped huge craters under the Antarctic ice sheet caused by an asteroid as big as the one believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs 65-million years ago.
Professor Frans van der Hoeven, from Delft University in the Netherlands, told the conference that the evidence showed that an asteroid measuring between five and 11km across had broken up in the atmosphere and five large pieces had hit the Earth, creating multiple craters over an area measuring 2 080km by 3 840km.
The effect would have been to melt all the ice in the path of the pieces, as well as the crust underneath. The biggest single strike caused a hole in the ice sheet roughly 320 by 320km, which would have melted about 1% of the ice sheet, raising water levels worldwide by 60cm.
But the climatic conditions were different at the time of the strike — about 780 000 years ago — from when the asteroid that is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs struck Yucatan in Mexico.
That impact created dust storms and fires that, by blocking out the sun, cooled the Earth’s atmosphere so much that the dinosaurs could not survive. The Antarctica strike occurred during an ice age, so even tidal waves would have been weakened to mere ripples by the calming effect of icebergs on the ocean.
Van der Hoeven first realised that there may have been a giant asteroid strike in the Antarctic while on an expedition across the continent in 1960 when he noticed severe anomalies in the gravity from the rocks below, indicating a crater. By coincidence another scientist had concluded that a giant event must have occurred around 780 000 years ago somewhere in the southern hemisphere, probably Antarctica.
But it was not until this year, when two satellites operating above Antarctica began to map the anomalies in the gravity, that the scale of the crater emerged. The mapping showed that the holes in the rock created by the strike had refilled with a mixture of ice, rock and other debris far less dense. This material, called breccia, shows where and how deep the craters are.
Van der Hoeven said: ”The extraordinary thing about this meteor strike is that it appeared to do so little damage. Unlike the dinosaur strike there is no telltale layer of dust that demonstrates the history of the event. It may have damaged things and wiped out species but there is no sign of it.”
One thing that did happen at exactly the same time was the reversing of the Earth’s magnetic field. There is no other explanation as to why this took place and Van der Hoeven believes it was caused by the impact. – Guardian Unlimited Â