Asteroid crater is over 2.2 billion years old

The oldest crater on Earth in the town of Yarrabubba has a diameter of nearly 70km.

Yarrabubba pit in Western Australia.(Photo: ABC).

The team from Curtin University in Perth for the first time used the isotope analysis method of minerals to calculate the exact date of the 69.2km crater. The Yarrabubba crater appeared 200 million years earlier than the second oldest crater on Earth in Vredefort, South Africa. The team, led by Dr. Timmons Erickson at NASA's Office of Astronomical Materials and Discovery Science, published the findings today in the journal Nature Communications.

The Yarrabubba pit is located between Sandstone and Meekatharra towns in central Western Australia. Earlier, researchers recognized that this structure is made up of impact force but could not determine its exact age, according to Professor Chris Kirkland at Curtin University. The surface of the Earth is constantly changing due to geological tectonics and erosion processes, making long-standing impact craters very difficult to identify.

The team analyzed zircon and monazite , two minerals that crystallized under the influence of a meteorite impact at the bottom of the Yarrabubba crater. Dating to 2.2 billion years, Yarrabubba lasts as long as half the age of Earth (4.5 billion years). The impact also contributes to helping the Earth escape the freezing period, the atmosphere and oceans become more oxygen-rich.

The team's calculations indicate that the force acting on the frozen continent could shoot half a trillion tons of water vapor into the atmosphere, helping to change Earth's climate and create a giant crater that still exists today. .

1. Top 10 largest meteorite craters on Earth
2. The largest crater discovered on Earth
3. Strange revival life in a meteorite crater kill dinosaurs