A Steaming Cauldron Followed the Dinosaurs' Demise

3D cross section of the hydrothermal system in the Chicxulub impact crater.
Credit: Victor O. Leshyk for the Lunar and Planetary Institute

The results of the National Science Foundation-funded study are published in the journal Science Advances. Chicxulub crater may have harbored a vast, long-lived hydrothermal system

A new study reveals that the Chicxulub impact crater may have harbored a vast and long-lived hydrothermal system following the catastrophic impact event linked to the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

The Chicxulub impact crater, roughly 180 kilometers (about 110 miles) in diameter, is the best-preserved large impact structure on Earth and a target for exploration of several impact-related phenomena. In 2016, a research team supported by the International Ocean Discovery Program and International Continental Scientific Drilling Program drilled into the crater, reaching a depth of 1,335 meters (close to a mile) below the seafloor.

The team recovered rock core samples to study the thermal and chemical modification of Earth's crust the impact caused. The core samples show the crater hosted an extensive hydrothermal system that chemically and mineralogically modified more than 100,000 cubic kilometers (almost 24,000 miles) of Earth's crust. READ MORE