Clues to one of Earth's oldest craters revealed

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The Sudbury Basin located in Ontario, Canada is one of the largest known impact craters on Earth, as well as one of the oldest due to its formation more than 1.8 billion years ago.

Researchers who took samples from the site and subjected them to a detailed say that a may have hit the area to create the crater.

"Our analysis revealed a chondritic platinum group element signature within the 's fallback deposits; however, the distribution of these elements within the impact structure and other constraints suggest that the impactor was a comet. Thus, it seems that a comet with a chondritic refractory component may have created the world-famous Sudbury basin," said Joe Petrus, lead author of the Terra Nova paper.

More information: Joseph A. Petrus et al, On the track of the elusive Sudbury impact: geochemical evidence for a chondrite or comet bolide, Terra Nova (2014). DOI: 10.1111/ter.12125

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Citation: Clues to one of Earth's oldest craters revealed (2014, November 13) retrieved 28 March 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2014-11-clues-earth-oldest-craters-revealed.html
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