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full screen A trace of a meteorite impact in the form of a small stone was discovered along the Greenland ice sheet. Press photo. Photo: National Museum of Natural History
Traces of a meteorite impact that occurred a billion years ago have been discovered in Greenland, according to the National Museum of Natural History.
The track is a small rock that was collected by an international research team in 2019.
“The small rock stood out among all the other rocks and boulders that cover the mostly flat landscape. It is a molten rock formed by the enormous temperatures and pressures that arise during a meteorite impact,” says Gavin Kenny, geologist at the National Museum of Natural History, in a press release.
This makes it the second crater found in Greenland – the previous one is estimated to be 58 million years old. Approximately 80 percent of the island is covered by ice, and the discovery was made along the edge of the ice in northwestern Greenland.
The exact location of the impact remains unknown. There is much evidence, however, that it comes from a possible impact crater under the ice sheet in northwest Greenland that has been identified via remote sensing.
There are over 200 confirmed impact craters in the world, eight of which are in Sweden.