A 100 kilometre-wide crater has been found in Greenland, the result of a massive asteroid impact a billion years before any other known collision on Earth.
The previously oldest known crater on Earth formed two billion years ago and the chances of finding an even older impact were thought to be astronomically low.
Now, a team of scientists from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) in Copenhagen, Cardiff University in Wales, Lund University in Sweden and the Institute of Planetary Science in Moscow has upset these odds.
The spectacular craters on the Moon formed from impacts with asteroids and comets betweenthree3 and four billion years ago.
The early Earth, with its far greater gravitational mass, must have experienced even more collisions at this time - but the evidence has been eroded away or covered by younger rocks.
Following a detailed programme of fieldwork, funded by GEUS and the Danish ‘Carlsbergfondet’ (Carlsberg Foundation), the team have discovered the remains of a giant three billion-year-old impact near the Maniitsoq region of West Greenland.
Clues: Finnefjeld mountain, which is around 1050m high, is believed to be the crushed core of the structure
The dull grey rocks were crushed to fine powder by the impact, and then cut by white melt sheets
more
The oldest and 'biggest ever' asteroid crater discovered in Greenland - suggesting huge impact more than three billion years ago | Mail Online
The previously oldest known crater on Earth formed two billion years ago and the chances of finding an even older impact were thought to be astronomically low.
Now, a team of scientists from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) in Copenhagen, Cardiff University in Wales, Lund University in Sweden and the Institute of Planetary Science in Moscow has upset these odds.
The spectacular craters on the Moon formed from impacts with asteroids and comets betweenthree3 and four billion years ago.
The early Earth, with its far greater gravitational mass, must have experienced even more collisions at this time - but the evidence has been eroded away or covered by younger rocks.
Following a detailed programme of fieldwork, funded by GEUS and the Danish ‘Carlsbergfondet’ (Carlsberg Foundation), the team have discovered the remains of a giant three billion-year-old impact near the Maniitsoq region of West Greenland.
Clues: Finnefjeld mountain, which is around 1050m high, is believed to be the crushed core of the structure
The dull grey rocks were crushed to fine powder by the impact, and then cut by white melt sheets
more
The oldest and 'biggest ever' asteroid crater discovered in Greenland - suggesting huge impact more than three billion years ago | Mail Online
