An international group of scientists working under the guidance of Kurt Cyrus from the University of Copenhagen, during a topological research found almost a kilometer-thick ice of the glacier Hiawatha in the North-West of Greenland, a huge impact crater with a diameter of about 31 kilometers. In the course of their work, scientists used data from NASA, collected from 1997 to 2016, as well as information obtained by the radar study of the area. About the discovery reported in the journal Science Advances.
Scientists say that discovered crater is one of the 25 most large impact structures on the Earth’s surface. Also, is it better than other structures of similar size have preserved their original shape.
Researchers believe that the crater was formed as the result of a meteorite the size of about 1 kilometer. And apparently the structure of the object was rich in metals. This conclusion researchers made based on the analysis of sediments at the edges of the glacier, which was put there by meltwater. As it turned out, the samples contain large amounts of minerals, which is typical for meteorite craters. Scientists have discovered particles passing through the melting of quartz, Nickel, platinum, gold and cobalt in amounts unusual for the earth’s crust.
The topology of the detected crater
To establish the exact age of the crater, scientists can not yet. However, render the assumption that he appeared not before the so-called Pleistocene epoch, which began over 2.5 million years ago (when Greenland was still not covered with glaciers) and ended about 12 thousand years ago.
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