New secrets about the dinosaur killer will be revealed! – Your news now

Published in Al Shorouk on 10/05/2024

Scientists have revealed that the large asteroid that caused the end of the age of dinosaurs when it hit Earth 66 million years ago was not an isolated event.
Detailed scans of an underwater crater off the coast of Guinea in West Africa suggest it was created when another large asteroid hit the planet around the same time at the end of the Cretaceous period.
Studies show that the violent impact that occurred 65 to 67 million years ago caused the appearance of an impact crater with a diameter of more than five thousand, as scientists estimate that the asteroid was about 1,640 feet (500 meters) wide and touching the Earth. at a speed of about 45,000 miles per hour.
Although smaller than the asteroid that caused the mass extinction, it is still large enough to leave scars on the planet’s surface.
The first evidence of this second asteroid was published in 2022, and Dr. Oysden MacNicholas, a marine geologist at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, and his team analyze seismic reflection data from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
The data revealed a depression about 5 miles (9 km) deep, which the team suspected could be an impact crater.
Now, scientists have captured high-resolution 3D seismic images of the depression, which have confirmed their suspicions.
The crater was called “Nader Crater”, and was caused by an asteroid hitting Earth about 66 million years ago – the same age as the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs .
Dr Nicholson said: “The new images paint a picture of the tragic event.” At the time, details of the impact were unclear.
To understand more about the impact, scientists used 3D seismic imaging to map the rim of the crater and geological scarps that lie 300 meters below the ocean floor.
“There are about 20 confirmed marine impact craters around the world, and none of them have been captured in anywhere near this level of detail. It’s amazing,” said Nicholson.
Scientists found that the crash likely caused a large earthquake that loosened sediments beneath the ocean floor, causing cracks to form beneath the sea floor. The impact triggered a landslide, with destruction visible over thousands of square miles beyond the rim of the impact crater, and unleashed a massive tsunami wave more than 800 meters high that would have traveled across the Atlantic Ocean .
Scientists are unable to determine when the asteroid hit Earth, but the discovery of the impact crater and its estimated age have fueled speculation that it may have belonged to a cluster of impacts at the end of the Cretaceous period.
The asteroid associated with the extinction of the dinosaurs was much larger than the rock that formed the Nader crater. It left a 100 mile wide impact crater in what is now Chicxulub on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
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