Wannabe Crater, known locally as the Maniitsoq structure, is located 55 kilometers southeast of Maniitsoq City in Greenland . The structure is about 100 km in diameter and formed about 3 billion years ago, although its origin has been debated in recent years. Also read: Greenland used to be a fertile grassland, this is the proof
In 2012, geologist Adam Garde, from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, and colleagues said they had found evidence that the Maniitsoq structure was created by a meteor collision. They call it the earliest known example of its kind on Earth. However, a new study questions the team’s 2012 findings.
“After extensive investigations in the Maniitsoq region, we have yet to find evidence of the microscopic shock deformation found in nearly any other impact crater,” lead author Chris Yakymchuk, a geologist at the University of Waterloo in Canada, told Live Science. “Our data show that the structures in the region are the product of ancient plate tectonic movements, deformations and warming over hundreds of millions of years.”
Not a Crash Crater?
Garde and his colleagues concluded that the Maniitsoq structure was an impact crater. The indications are mainly due to the rock structure at the center, these researchers wrote in 2012 in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
The researchers say that the depth of the rocks and the way they are forced into the ground can only be explained by the meteorite impact.
“With the data they had at the time, the origin of the impact made sense,” said Yakymchuk. “Our aim is to test the impact hypothesis using more data collected by a broader technique.”
Another study has cast doubt on the 2012 findings. But Yakymchuk, said he and his team arrived with “open minds” about the origins of the structure when they started the study in 2016.
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