Scientists have just recently found a gigantic basin off the coast of India that may possibly be the biggest impact crater in the world, even bigger then the one in the Yucatan Peninsula! Scientists are speculating that the meteorite that hit in India may have actually caused the demise of the dinosaurs, rather then what we learned in class about the K2 Boundary event. The Shiva basin just off the coast of India has been mined for its gas and oil and scientists believe the diameter of the basin is around 40 kilometers! The object that hit the Yucatan peninsula was much smaller, between 8 and 10 kilometers in width. Scientists believe that the impact broke the Seychelles islands off of India and into the ocean. Most of this huge basin resides under India's continental shelf and at its edges on the shore, cliffs, faults and hot springs appear. The intense impact of the meteorite may have destroyed a large amount of the 30 mile thick layer of granite that created much of India's western coast. Soon the scientists are going to excavate rocks from the center of the crater to see if it was indeed
formed by a gigantic impact.I thought this was interesting because we have learned so much about the death of the dinosaurs and the causes of it, and this shows how each day we are discovering more and more about the causes of mass extinctions. It will be interesting to see if this Indian impact did indeed cause the demise of the dinosaurs, rather then the one in the Yucatan. If it did I guess our textbooks will have to be changed!
Geological Society Of America (2009, October 15). Giant Impact Near India -- Not Mexico -- May Have Doomed Dinosaurs. ScienceDaily.
Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091015102246.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment