Meteor mega-hit spawned Australian continent

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A meteor's roaring crash into Antarctica -- larger
and earlier than the impact that killed the dinosaurs -- caused the
biggest mass extinction in Earth's history and likely spawned the
Australian continent, scientists said.

Ohio State University scientists said the 483-kilometer-wide
(300-mile-wide) crater is now hidden more than 1.6 kilometers (one
mile) beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.

"Gravity measurements that reveal its existence suggest that it could
date back about 250 million years -- the time of the Permian-Triassic
extinction, when almost all animal life on Earth died out," the
university said in a statement Thursday.

"Its size and location -- in the Wilkes Land region of East Antarctica,
south of Australia -- also suggest that it could have begun the breakup
of the Gondwana supercontinent by creating the tectonic rift that
pushed Australia northward," they added.

Scientists believe that the Permian-Triassic extinction paved the way
for the dinosaurs to rise to prominence.

The Wilkes Land crater is more than twice the size of the Chicxulub
crater in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, which marks the impact that may
have ultimately killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. ...

See http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060602...ssciencemeteor

Raving Loonie wrote:
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A meteor's roaring crash into Antarctica -- larger
and earlier than the impact that killed the dinosaurs -- caused the
biggest mass extinction in Earth's history and likely spawned the
Australian continent, scientists said.
See also http://tinyurl.com/fa2ul