World's largest asteroid impact crater has reportedly been found in Australia

Researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) might have found the world’s largest asteroid impact crater in Australia. The researchers believe that this site in the town of Deniliquin is evidence of the oldest asteroid impact buried in the world. They also say that this crater could have helped trigger a major glaciation event that killed 85 per cent of the world’s species.

The research is published in the journal Tectnophysics. The newly-found impact crater is named as Deniliquin structure.

UNSW adjunct professor and asteroid impact researcher, Andrew Glikson believed the crater is 323 miles in diameter which is nearly double the size of the current record-holding crarter, the Vredefort impact structure in South Africa.

Deniliquin structure, the world’s largest asteroid impact crater

Glikson claims the impact that caused the crater may have occurred during the Late Ordovician mass extinction event. “Specifically, I think it may have triggered what’s called the Hirnantian glaciation stage, which lasted between 445.2 and 433.8 million years ago,” he wrote in a statement.

“This huge glaciation and mass extinction event eliminated about 85 per cent of the planet’s species.”

Why does it matter?

Huge asteroid impacts can have a devastating effect on life on Earth. These impacts not only send reverberating waves of devastation out, but the debris fields and subsequent atmospheric noise can also dim the sun’s intensity, triggering a cooling event.

Glikson concedes that the crater maybe even older, but says that whenever the asteroid hit, it did so on the eastern part of the Gondwana continent, which existed many years ago before it split off into several continents, including Australia.

Finding of a crater of this humungous size buried in plain view is what makes this discovery interesting. As per scientists, due to erosion and constant sediment movement, it is tricky to explain the existence of such a huge crater because even Earth’s shifting tectonic plates can alter the crater.

Glikson says that when an asteroid strikes, it creates a crater with an uplifted core as a drop of water splashes upward when a pebble hits a pool.

“This central uplifted dome is a key characteristic of large impact structures,” he writes. “However, it can erode over thousands to millions of years, making the structure difficult to identify.”

By understanding the geophysical makeup of the materials thrown out of a crater during impact, scientists can study layers of “impact ejecta” in various terrains around the world. Gondwana and Australia were and are home to 38 confirmed and 43 potential impact structures.

(With inputs from agencies)

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