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It's hard to imagine how billions of tons of rock can suddenly behave like a liquid, but that's exactly what happened when an asteroid hit the Earth 66 million years ago.
The impact of the asteroid releases energy equivalent to 10 billion bombs from Hiroshima
According to US scientists who were able to reconstruct in detail each step of the colossal impact that decimated the dinosaurs.
Samples obtained from the crater formed after the collision have concluded that
200 km Crater
Computer models have determined what would happen if one of these rocks was subjected to a process of "fluidification".
In other words, the pulverized material began to behave like a water-like substance.
Initially, a concave space of about 30 kilometers in depth and 100 kilometers in diameter would be created almost instantly.
The instability of the ground would cause it to collapse later in the crater banks. And this collapse would in turn generate a rebound reaction from the bottom of the crater to heights greater than the Himalayas.
The famous Mexican cenotes, flooded geological depressions
Photo: Getty Images / BBC News Brazil
"The rock was crushed and broken into tiny fragments of a few millimeters at the beginning, which gave a fluid behavior that explains the flat base of the crater, which characterizes Chicxulub and "
Fluidization is not a process of melting rocks, but a fragmentation of rocks under the effect of immense vibratory forces," says Sean Gulick of the University of Texas at Austin. in the United States and one of the leaders of the drilling team.
"It's a pressure effect, a mechanical damage." The amount of energy flowing through these rocks equals earthquakes of magnitude 10 or 11. The total impact had an energy equivalent to 10 billion bombs from Hiroshima. "
After their fragmentation and their fluidification, the rocks have recovered their solidity to form the crater ring.The samples obtained testify to this solid delay.
" It manifests itself by discontinuities showing the way in which the rocks slide in relation to other rocks. These flat structures testify to the strength of the rock at the end of the year.
– The 12-kilometer-diameter asteroid dug a hole 100 km in diameter and 30 km deep in the earth's crust
– The center of the crater has collapsed again, producing an inner ring.
– Today, a large part of the crater is in the sea, under 600 m of sediment.
– On the mainland, the crater is covered with limestone, but its edges can be identified along an arc of cenotes – natural cavities in rocks dissolved by the pbadage of water [19659006] "Not only in our solar system"
Research sheds new light on some of the most catastrophic days in the Earth's history and on the mbadive extinction caused by the impact . It also contributes to the study of large craters in other planetary bodies.
The Schrödinger crater on the surface of the moon, with its inner rings, formed in a process similar to that observed in the Chicxulub crater
"We explain a fundamental process that can occur in any rock body," said Gulick.
"For the first time, we have rock samples showing the process of deformation that allowed them to behave temporarily as a liquid before becoming rocks again, without melting."
"This process results from the overlapping of deformation, fundamental process that can alter the surface of planets, not just our solar system, but probably in other solar systems. "
Riller and Gulick participated in the so-called 364 drilling expedition , which took place between April and May 2016.
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