Earth's noggin took quite a clockin' back in the day: Now a second meteorite crater spotted under Greenland ice Scientists believe they may have found a second meteorite impact crater lurking under ice sheets on Greenland. Researchers say they've clocked a hole measuring 22.7 miles (36.5 kilometres) wide caused by an ancient space rock slamming into our home world. The exact historical timing of the cosmic prang isn’t clear, though it …
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"The exact historical timing of the cosmic prang isn’t clear, though it appears ice has been eroding the crater for anywhere between a hundred thousand years and a hundred million years."
I wish I could get away with such estimates.
"How fast were you going, sir?"
"Oh, well, somewhere between 0.2 and 200 miles an hour, I know that"
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the late heavy bombardment peppered the planet quite thoroughly but in 3-4 billion years since then most of the crust has been recycled except for a few places like Greenland.
Not so much. The world as a whole bears plenty of evidence of meteor strikes. To quote someone who knows a lot more about it than I:
"If you didn’t know better, you’d suspect meteors were targeting Australia, North America and Europe. It’s not that there are so many craters there, it’s that there are so many geologists there, plus countries affluent enough to do detailed geologic mapping."
- Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, University of Wisconsin – Green Bay
There is also evidence there are craters under Antarctic ice, but it's not the most hospitable environment to go looking.
REF: https://malagabay.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/tektites-4-primary-and-secondary-impact-craters/
@Robert Helpmann?? - "It’s not that there are so many craters there, it’s that there are so many geologists there"
You mean it's like crop circles? Bored geologists are wandering out after a night down the pub and casually digging a fake 20km crater beneath the ice in Greenland? A lot more plausible than this Chicken Little "rocks from the sky" theory.
Mark 120, I came here to note the same thing.
Go down from the "H" in Humbolt, and right from the "H" in Hiawatha and you are at the upper-right corner of this nice round feature, which even has a dimple in the middle.
I also imagine small and large ones to the right of the Humbolt label.
And another large one right between the first-mentioned small one and the new large official one.
Also, go left from the top line of the dotty box, until you are under the Hiawatha...
I've spotted features like these in our local terrain maps used on weather forecasts too. I guess you have to be properly trained to avoid imagining things that aren't really there. Maybe.
An interesting choice of name considering many geological features named by European explorers are gradually being re-named back to their local, traditional names. You'd think these foreign scientists might have a look at the local language and traditions and find a name a bit more indigenous. (Yes, I know Greenland hasn't been occupied by humanity for all that much time in the great scheme of things, but still, Hiawatha sounds wrong for that region.
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