Long ago, a rock 6 miles across crashed into Earth and left a hole 12 miles deep and 240 miles wide.
El Reg reports
Australia has been identified as home to the largest asteroid impact crater ever found, more than twice the size of the Chicxulub crater in Mexico often attributed with wiping out the dinosaurs.
The new find in the Warburton Basin in Central Australia is a stunning 400 km-wide impact zone from a huge asteroid that broke into two pieces just before it hit. So big was the impact that it fractured the Earth's crust to a depth of around 20 km, according to a paper published in Tectonophysics .
The Australian National University says it's the largest impact crater ever discovered--the Chicxulub crater measures 180 km across. (108 mi) [... however, the] exact date of the impact remains unclear[...]
[Andrew Gilkson, PhD of the Australian National University says] "we can't find an extinction event that matches these collisions. I have a suspicion the impact could be older than 300 million years".
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 25 2015, @03:05AM
> it fractured the Earth's crust to a depth of around 20 km
That'll buff out. In a few hundred million years.
(Score: 2) by TK-421 on Wednesday March 25 2015, @03:08AM
I don't know. That's a big ass hole!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 25 2015, @03:13AM
I think there's still bigger ones here. [slashdot.org]
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday March 25 2015, @09:15AM
And afterwards, it should slowly resurface, given that down there everything is upside down.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Wednesday March 25 2015, @03:28AM
Anywhere near Broken Hill?
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday March 25 2015, @03:38AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by TK-421 on Wednesday March 25 2015, @03:39AM
Assuming I Google-Fu'd correctly, no.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Broken+Hill,+New+South+Wales,+Australia/Warburton+Basin,+Innamincka+SA,+Australia/@-28.927771,136.4201007,6z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x6aef3360de52c2cd:0x40609b490440170!2m2!1d141.4651361!2d-31.9558583!1m5!1m1!1s0x6a5cf098398e1257:0xac546aac87793a7e!2m2!1d140.855026!2d-26.066035 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday March 25 2015, @03:39AM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Wednesday March 25 2015, @03:44AM
I wonder why they say that they "can't find an extinction event that matches these collisions". Is it just because they can't pin down the date of the impact event to a range smaller than nearly the entire Paleozoic era? At 300 million to 600 million years ago, that goes from the late Ediacaran period of Precambrian time, all the way to the end of the Carboniferous. That's four of the five periods of the Paleozoic era, quite a lot of geological time. There are thought to have been at least three major mass extinctions within that time period: Cambrian-Ordovician (488 Mya), Ordovician-Silurian (447 Mya, the second most severe mass extinction), and Late Devonian (375 Mya). The Permian-Triassic extinction event, the worst mass extinction the earth has ever seen, is just beyond that time period (252 Mya). I imagine that the impact might be responsible for or at the very least contributed to one of these events.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 3, Funny) by sigma on Wednesday March 25 2015, @06:04AM
I wonder why they say that they "can't find an extinction event that matches these collisions".
The crater's near the border of South Australia and Queensland. If the impact happened in SA, the evidence has probably been welded into empty beer kegs and stored in a vault somewhere. If it was in QLD, they probably haven't realised it yet, so give them a few more eons to catch up.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Megahard on Wednesday March 25 2015, @04:47AM
Did it land on a witch?
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday March 25 2015, @05:39AM
Nope.
Although, by the force of impact on young and impressionable species (happens a lot with influential role models), it led to the evolution of Thylarctos plummetus [australianmuseum.net.au] (true, happened a bit later after the event).
(now, mod me +Informative if you dare)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Informative) by MostCynical on Wednesday March 25 2015, @06:10AM
There is some dispute about size and distribution..
http://web.archive.org/web/20130511181210/http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/drop-bears-prefer-travellers-says-study.htm [archive.org]
Also, it may not have emerged until the Holocene.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday March 25 2015, @06:20AM
Hey! I'm not falling for such obvious poppy-cockery! Drop-bears! Who ever even heard of such a thing! I have half a mind to .. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaH!! Get it off, , , ,AAAAHHHH! Me! Oh, no, Ahhhrgh! Gurgle, gurgle. Plop. Connection lost:::>
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday March 25 2015, @06:50AM
Hello... Hello?? ...
Damned. Only if they'd have the patience to read 'til the "Danger to humans" section. For those too lazy to RTFA, here's the excerpt:
From direct personal experience I can tell:
I'd suggest to mount them so they form a crest (I've been told that some drop bears learned how to launch themselves on angles other than vertical - perhaps we're witnessing the early stages of a speciation process)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday March 25 2015, @01:49PM
lol, great link! I would read a paragraph and then recheck the url, "Yup, legit url.. wtf!"
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Touché) by kaszz on Wednesday March 25 2015, @10:43AM
"Long ago, a rock 9.6 km across crashed into Earth and left a hole 19 km deep and 384 km wide."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday March 25 2015, @07:26PM
Don't be silly. The descendants of people rejected by the British Empire would never adopt a measurement system designed by the French.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Wednesday March 25 2015, @10:52PM
They better avoid other bad English stuff like electromagnetic induction, Faraday's law of induction, The telephone, ARM architecture, Boolean algebra, Universal Turing machine etc.. :D
(Score: 1) by MostCynical on Thursday March 26 2015, @12:33AM
or Raincoats, tar roads* etc
*Scottish, but close enough
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex