A Mexican asteroid crater linked to the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago will be investigated by scientists who next year plan to drill 5,000 feet below its floor to bring up a sample of its core.
Some scientists have long believed the huge Chicxulub crater located on the Yucatan Peninsula was the origin of the dinosaurs' mass extinction,
according to LiveScience.com.
Researchers hope to bring up a core from the underwater crater, named for a nearby seaside village, in an effort to look 10 million to 15 million years into the past. It would be the first offshore core taken from near the center of the crater, noted LiveScience.com.
Sean Gulick, associate research professor from the University of Texas who will co-lead the project, told the
Daily Texan that rock samples from the crater would be used to study the evolution of life and the impact crater formation process.
"[The Chicxulub crater] is the only impact crater linked to a mass extinction event – therefore, it is an incredible opportunity to study how life recovered after the mass extinction," said Gulick. "Also, we can see the way impact craters look on other planets, but on Earth we can collect the samples and figure out fundamental things about the process that makes them possible."
Half of the core grabbed during the project will be researched by an international team of scientists in Germany, reported the Daily Texan. The other half will be stored in a repository at Texas A&M University.
"Some of those sediments have been drilled before, but the data for those drill sets are either not well-preserved or not recorded at all," said Jason Sanford, geological sciences graduate student. "The new cores will be really great data points that will either corroborate or change what [geologists'] interpretations were."
The project is a joint venture between the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling and the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program, noted LiveScience.com.
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