Scientists Confirm Mountaintop Crater in China: Impact of Meteorite Revealed

Jakarta –

A 1.6 km wide hole at the top of Mount Baijifeng in China is actually a crater formed by the impact of a meteorite landing in the past. This has been confirmed by a team of scientists.

This newly discovered crater is located in northeastern China not far from the North Korean border. As quoted from Live Science, this is the first confirmed mountaintop crater on Earth.

Researchers are not sure when the impact of the impact occurred. However, what is clear is that this event left a circular depression and divided the mountain peak into two, and is known as Front Baijifeng and Back Baijifeng.

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The mountain peak is littered with stone fragments known to locals as ‘heavenly stones’. According to a new study published September 1 in the journal Matter and Radiation at Extremes, the rocks at the top of the mountain have shaking patterns that indicate an impact with a space object.

The researchers were attracted by the shape of the depression between the two mountain peaks, which stretches for about 1,400 meters, and the large sandstone fragments scattered across the mountain.

They collected sandstone and granite samples from the crater’s surface and examined the quartz minerals within. When exposed to large amounts of heat and pressure, quartz deforms in specific ways, so the team looked for signs of such deformation.

Researchers led by Ming Chen and Ho-Kwang Mao from the Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research in Shanghai, found dozens of examples of such deformation in thin slices of rock taken from the crater.

The granite that forms the crater was formed between 150 million and 172 million years ago, which means the impact must have occurred after this period, but the exact time is still unknown.

“The weathering pattern in one of China’s two confirmed impact craters, the Yilan crater in Heilongjiang province, is similar to the pattern seen at Baijifeng,” the researchers wrote. This suggests that the ages of the two craters may be similar.

Yilan Crater, 49 thousand years old, is the largest impact crater under 100 thousand years old ever discovered. A third impact crater in China, also confirmed by Chen, called the Xiuyan crater, is also located in the northeast of the country.

A huge crater, known only from glass rocks scattered by the impact as far away as Australia, may also be buried beneath the desert in northwestern China, but scientists have not yet revealed its location.

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(rns/rns)

2023-09-15 14:45:53
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