VOLOS: The Chicxulub Crater, the impact spot for an asteroid thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs around 65 million years in the past, is the subject of a new research drilling expedition to answer the many questions that surround the event.
Researchers are hoping to retrieve core samples that will be able to peel back the veil of time, revealing the state of the region anywhere from 10 to 15 million years ago. This could help not only verify that the crater was formed by a giant asteroid but whether it was solely responsible or the death of the dinosaurs – or if there were contributing factors.
Chicxulub is located deep beneath the Yucatan Peninsula and measures around 125 miles wide. An asteroid around six miles wide has been understood to have created the crater, but some scientists say dinosaurs might have already been facing an environmental upheaval by the time the asteroid blasted its way into the surface of the Earth that would have left them vulnerable and off-balance to begin with.
The drilling project, which is scheduled to begin in the spring of next year, is hoping to get a glimpse of the state of the Earth at the time of the impact. While the drill can only reach the ten-to-fifteen million year mark, the nature of the impact is theorized to have acted like a rock being dropped in water, sending a rebound up in the center of the impact in the way a liquid would act. This displacement from a so-called “peak ring” could have left traces that could be seen in the core sample long after the impact occurred, the researchers are hoping.
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