Crater from dino-killing asteroid was hotbed for life, study finds
The crater left behind from the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs may have been a “literal hotbed for life,” according to a new study published in Nature Communications. Around 66 million years ago, an asteroid roughly the size of Mount Everest crashed into the Earth off the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, killing all the non-avian dinosaurs and around 70% of all marine species.
But the crater it left behind in the Gulf of Mexico may have been a hotbed for life, with the overlying oceans being enriched for at least 700,000 years, according to the new study. The scientists discovered a hydrothermal system that was created by the asteroid impact. That may have helped marine life flourish there, generating and circulating nutrients in the crater environment.
“After the asteroid impact, the Gulf of Mexico records an ecological recovery process that is quite different from that of the global ocean, as continuous hydrothermal activity has created a unique marine environment,” the study’s lead author Honami Sato, an assistant professor at Japan’s Kyushu University, said.
Past studies determined that life already returned to the area near the crater within years but this new study posits that a hydrothermal system created by the asteroid impact and its melt sheet buried under the seafloor may have not only helped in its recovery, but played a role in sustaining life for millennia.
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