Nadir crater off Guinea Another asteroid hit just as the dinosaurs were disappearing

The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was not an isolated incident: researchers have discovered that another celestial body struck off Guinea at 72,000 km/h during the same period.

Uisdean Nicholson and his colleagues revealed the existence of the Nadir crater two years ago: 400 kilometers off the coast of the West African country of Guinea at a depth of 300 meters lies a bulge with a diameter of 9.2 kilometers.

Together with other colleagues, geologist Nichsolson from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh has now discovered what caused this huge scar on the continental shelf: 65 to 67 million years ago, an asteroid hit there at 72,000 km/h.

According to the new study, this asteroid was only 400 meters in size, but its force was so strong that it melted the sediment under the seabed, causing faulting of the ground. Thousands of square kilometers were devastated.

800 meter high tsunami

The tsunami triggered by the impact is said to have been over 800 meters high. "The closest humanity has come to seeing something like this was the Tunguska event in 1908, when a 50-meter asteroid entered the Earth's atmosphere and exploded in the sky over Siberia," Nicholson told the Guardian.

The Naidr crater was formed at the end of the Cretaceous period: The impact falls in the same period as the one that formed the Chicxulub crater in the north of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico.but at around 180 kilometers in diameter, it is significantly larger. The asteroid that caused it is currently the most likely explanation for the extinction of the dinosaurs.

To unravel the mystery of the Nadir crater, the researchers used 3D seismic imaging to map the terrain. "There are about 20 confirmed underwater craters in the world, and none of them have been mapped in anywhere near this much detail," Nicholson enthuses. "It's exquisite."