In 2018, scientists discovered an impact crater under the Hiawatha Glacier that they suspected was recent—perhaps within the past 100,000 years, when humans might have been around to witness it. But now, the same team says the strike is much, much older.
. The researchers say it occurred 58 million years ago, a warm time when vast forests covered Greenland—and humanity was not yet even a glimmer in evolution’s eye. Kurt Kjær, a geologist at the Natural History Museum of Denmark and a co-author of the new study, says the new date is at odds with the team’s initial impression, gleaned from ice-penetrating radar. “But this is the way science works and should work,” he says.
Kjær’s team originally thought dating the impact would be impossible without drilling through 1 kilometer or so of ice to sample rocks in the center of the crater. The radar data, however, yielded clues to what seemed to be a young age: reflections indicating ice layers older than 11,700 years are deformed, hinting at an impact around that time.
Now, the team is wondering whether the distorted ice it initially took as signs of a recent impact resulted instead from the sudden collapse of ice that bridged the ice sheets covering Greenland and Canada’s Arctic archipelago during the last ice age. “Eventually they disconnected—presumably with some dynamic consequences,” says Joseph MacGregor, a co-author and glaciologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Malaysia Latest News, Malaysia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
This long-lost asteroid impact was so big its debris left more than 30 cratersThe find includes dozens of craters spread across southeast Wyoming.
Read more »
Controversial rock art may depict extinct giants of the ice ageGiant ground sloths the size of a car, elephantine herbivores and a deerlike animal with an elongated snout are depicted in rock paintings in the Colombian Amazon rainforest, according to a new study. But some archaeologists say the art is more recent.
Read more »
DeepMind’s new AI model helps decipher, date, and locate ancient inscriptionsMachine learning meets ancient inscriptions
Read more »
13 Celebrities Who Have (Surprisingly) Never Won an OscarBelieve it or not, Annette Bening, Glenn Close, Samuel L. Jackson, and many other Hollywood A-listers have never won an Academy Award.
Read more »
Shackleton’s legendary ship is finally found off the Antarctic Coast, a century laterLost for more than a century, explorer Ernest Henry Shackleton's 144-foot long ship, Endurance, has finally been discovered off the coast of Antarctica beneath the icy Weddell Sea. Explore more exclusive images:
Read more »