A team of scientists has made a groundbreaking discovery in the remote corner of northern Australia, where an ancient impact site was recently spotted by Earth-observing satellites monitoring our planet’s resources. The images captured in early February by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 revealed the Amelia Creek impact structure, a one-by-five-kilometer canoe-shaped feature where an asteroid collided with the region’s rock strata.
The massive asteroid, estimated to be around 1300 feet across, is recognizable after 600 million years by structural folds still visible in the surrounding sedimentary and volcanic rock layers. The event occurred during the Ediacaran Period, which saw the rise of complex organisms that represent the earliest evidence of multicellular animals.
Satellite imagery revealed a 10-kilometer area of deformation in the surrounding rock, with the crater’s elongated shape suggesting an oblique angle of impact. This contrasts with deeper, symmetrical features found at other impact sites like Chicxulub, which is associated with the extinction of the dinosaurs.
The discovery provides additional clues to the impact, including fan-shaped structures embedded in nearby quartzite rock known as shatter cones. These rare structures are a telltale signature of an impact event resulting from shock waves produced when the object collides with the Earth.
While it’s unclear how much damage the asteroid might have caused 600 million years ago, the oblique approach angle would have allowed it to burn off portions of its mass during reentry. The discovery has sparked theories about potential global effects and the fate of ancient creatures that thrived during this period.
Source: https://thedebrief.org/nasa-earth-observing-satellite-mission-spots-mysterious-impact-structure-in-remote-australian-outback