Posted on 09/25/2024 7:17:19 AM PDT by Red Badger
A potential 370-mile-wide crater in Australia, known as MAPCIS, may reshape our understanding of Earth’s geological history. Researchers found geological evidence, including shocked minerals and melt rock, suggesting a massive impact at the end of the Ediacaran period. (Artist’s concept.) Credit: SciTechDaily.com
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Research team is delving into history, exploring events that occurred hundreds of millions of years ago. A potential crater over 370 miles (600 kilometers) wide in central Australia may transform our knowledge of Earth’s geological past.
Researcher Daniel Connelly and Virginia Commonwealth University’s Arif Sikder, Ph.D., believe they have found evidence to support the existence of MAPCIS – the Massive Australian Precambrian-Cambrian Impact Structure – which is a nonconcentric complex crater that could provide new insights into the geological and biological evolution of our planet.
“Working on the MAPCIS project has been an incredible journey,” said Sikder, an associate professor in the Center for Environmental Studies, a unit of VCU Life Sciences. “The data we’ve gathered offers a unique glimpse into the forces that have shaped our planet, and I’m excited about the future research this discovery will inspire.”
A surface geology map of the proposed Massive Australian Precambrian-Cambrian Impact Structure. Credit: Daniel Connelly
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This September, Connelly will make a presentation in Anaheim, California, at Connects 2024, the Geological Society of America’s annual meeting. In August, he presented at the 37th International Geological Congress 2024 in Busan, South Korea. According to researchers, the impact occurred at the end of the Ediacaran period, within the Neoproterozoic Era, which spans from 1 billion to 538.8 million years ago.
Geological Evidence of the Impact
Among the geological evidence they have uncovered to support the age, size, and location of the impact are massive deposits of pseudotachylite breccia, or melt rock, near the crater center. The researchers found shocked minerals, including lonsdaleite, or shocked diamond, in the deposits, along with impact level amounts of iridium.
“The discovery of MAPCIS is a testament to the power of collaborative research,” Connelly said. “Our findings not only highlight the significance of this impact structure but also open new avenues for understanding Earth’s geological past.”
Meeting: Connects 2024
“Why do meteors always land in craters?”
It’s just God playing golf.
They air brushed out the turtle and all four elephants.
I believe that the Gulf of Mexico is one large crater hole.
Maybe one of the oldest ever on the planet
It’s too circular to be any natural phenomenon
I tend to believe it was shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of Hurricane style storms.
If you say so...
And so is Hudson Bay in Canada................
Oh my gosh, you’re right! No wonder Newsom wants to ban Deep Fake photos and videos.
Well I disagree with the age they ‘assigned’ since most natural clocks support young ages <10k years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hhE6tzJR_c&t=637s
its a THEORY.. wiseguy
I admit it
The Edicara Period of the Proterozoic Era was just before the Cambrian Period of the Paleozoic Era. This Meteor probably helped the Cambrian life explosion. If you look at the Edicaran life forms one can see how a major event could shape and reform life
It could be both. Great impact events causing more intense global action, and then drift when things are more quiet. This 300 mi+ crater is certainly huge. Regarding the shape of the Gulf of Mexico, are you referring to the coast line of US into Mexico, or the crater hitting part of Yucatan and extending into the GUlf? The Yucatan crater which occured around 65 million years ago apparently triggered the death of the dinosaurs. It is 150 to 180 miles wide, but does NOT touch our southern shoreline.
If the subject crater is precambrian, that is certainly older than the Yucatan crater that ended the dinosaurs. I took have wondered about the huge bay in Canada. Another really large one in, I think Ontario, produced a highly mineral rich and human exploited area called the Sudbury. Drove through it once, really a visual mess. I think several even earlier ones occurred more than 1 and 2 billion years ago as well.
Another one that has raised questions for me is the Great Permian Extinction event. Much worse than the dinosaur Extinction event, perhaps around 250 million or more years ago. Has been blamed on huge effusion of lava in Siberia, but did that happen as a volcanic event, or did a very large meteor strike, and get swallowed up by all the magma that flowed out?
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