Chicxulub is one of the largest impact craters on Earth.
A team of researchers from the US and UK managed to penetrate deeper into the crater from the meteorite that destroyed the dinosaurs over 60 million years ago. Samples of his bowels will allow to estimate the scale of prehistoric disasters and the effects on the environment.
Researchers from the two countries have conducted drilling of the Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico for 7 weeks. Originally, they planned to penetrate the 1500 metres below the seabed, but eventually reached a depth of 1,300 metres. However, the project participants consider that the work was a success.
“This is a spectacular success,” says operations project Manager Dave Smith. We went deeper than I expected”.
Rock samples, which were collected, were placed in special containers and will now be sent to a lab in the USA. They are then forwarded to Bremen, where a team of 33 scientists will expose them to a series of tests.
The researchers hope that the samples collected will help to better understand how the crater formed, how great was the energy of a meteorite impact and what were the consequences for the environment. Perhaps they will also help to answer the question how fast in the affected area come to life.
Chicxulub is one of the largest impact craters on Earth. Its diameter is about 180 km. it is Assumed that it was formed about 65 million years ago in the late Cretaceous period as a result of a meteorite, caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.
