Michigan Earth Professor Emeritus and marine biologist Theodore Moore recently spoke with The Washington Post about research regarding ancient asteroid craters and the information they can tell us about the Earth’s history.
The study took place on the Vredefort crater, located near Johannesburg, which focused on whether rocks at this depth still showed geophysical signs of the impact. The results showed that the rocks that had experienced asteroid shock were almost indistinguishable from rocks that had not experienced asteroid impact. This leads to the conclusion that we are losing signs of asteroid impact due to erosion, which blocks us from drawing conclusions of what happened in the past.
While Dr. Moore didn’t participate in the research process, he mentioned that the lack of old craters found in the study is “spot on” and that the most effective erosional mechanism is the friction from ice sheets flowing on land, which covered most land during the past ice ages.
Dr. Moore also mentioned that oceans and seas can hide many of the asteroid impacts around the world.
Read the full article from The Washington Post HERE.
