Geophysical evidence suggests there is a massive, magnetized structure deep beneath Australia. Experts think it could be the remnants of the largest meteor crater on Earth.
In recent research published by myself and my colleague Tony Yeates in the journal Tectonophysics, we investigate what we believe – based on many years of experience in asteroid impact research – is the world’s largest known impact structure, buried deep in the earth in southern New South Wales.
This central uplifted dome is a key characteristic of large impact structures. However, it can erode over thousands to millions of years, making the structure difficult to identify. Some large impacts are correlated with mass extinction events. For example, the Alvarez hypothesis, named after father and son scientists Luis and Walter Alvarez, explains how non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out as a result of a large asteroid strike some 66 million years ago.
Such domes, which can slowly erode and/or become buried through time, may be all that’s preserved from the original impact structure. They represent the deep-seated “root zone” of an impact. Famous examples are found in the Vredefort impact structure and the 170km-wide Chicxulub crater in Mexico. The latter represents the impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Magnetic measurements also show evidence of “radial faults”: fractures that radiate from the centre of a large impact structure. This is further accompanied by small magnetic anomalies which may represent igneous “dikes”, which are sheets of magma injected into fractures in a pre-existing body of rock.
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