The asteroid impact that doomed the dinosaurs may also have built one of the most durable underground ecosystems on Earth.
When an area approximately 10 kilometers (6 miles) wide asteroid crashed into what is now Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago, triggering a global catastrophe which wiped out about 75% of life on Earth, including all non-avian dinosaurs.
However, that same impact may also have created a vast underground environment capable of supporting microbial life for at least 8 million years, four times longer than scientists previously believed, according to a new study.
Using updated computer simulations, the researchers discovered that the hydrothermal system generated beneath the famous chicxulub crater It persisted much longer than expected, making it the longest-lived impact-generated hydrothermal system yet documented on Earth.
“Anywhere Land “Hot flowing water is found, life is found, and we have known for a long time that asteroid impacts create hydrothermal systems,” Annemarie Pickersgill, co-author of the study from the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Center (SUERC), said in a statement. “Previous research conducted in the early 2000s suggested that the system created by the Chicxulub impact lasted approximately two million years. These findings were based on computer models that, even at the time, were considered conservative estimates, but we were still surprised by the results of our research.”
The Chicxulub impact carved out a crater nearly 200 kilometers (125 miles) wide and unleashed enormous amounts of heat deep below. the earth’s crust. Subsequently, seawater from the Gulf of Mexico infiltrated fractured and melted rocks beneath the crater, creating a network of hot, water-filled pores and cracks, conditions that scientists consider very favorable for microbial life.
The new study combines advanced geological simulations with evidence collected directly from the crater itself. In 2016, scientists drilled in the Chicxulub “ring of peaks” as part of Expedition 364 of the International Ocean Discovery Program, recovering rock samples from the depths of the seafloor. Among the materials they collected was a potassium-rich feldspar mineral that formed when hot fluids circulated through the crater after the impact.
Using what are known as argon-argon dating techniques, the researchers determined that these minerals formed over a surprisingly long period, spanning from the time of the impact 66 million years ago to about 58 million years ago. This indicates that hydrothermal activity It persisted for at least 8 million years, according to the statement.
To understand how the system remained active for so long, the team ran updated computer simulations incorporating modern geological data and more sophisticated models of heat and fluid flow. Their results suggest that several factors worked together to sustain the underground environment, including highly permeable fractured rocks, the lingering heat of the impact itself, and the region’s natural geothermal energy.
“Advances in computational methods allow researchers to simulate complex natural systems with unprecedented realism, bringing us ever closer to unlocking the mysteries of the chaotic physical processes that shape the Earth and other planetary bodies over geological time scales,” Evangelos Christou, co-author of the study and former doctoral researcher at the University of Glasgow, said in the statement.
Hydrothermal environments are believed to have played a crucial role in the origin and evolution of life on early Earth. Therefore, if impact-generated systems can remain active for millions of years, they could provide stable habitats where microbial communities can emerge and thrive even after catastrophic events like Chicxulub.
The study results may also help guide future searches for life elsewhere in the solar system. MarsFor example, it has suffered countless asteroid impacts and may have once had surface water billions of years ago. Like Chicxulub, large impacts on the Red Planet could have created similar underground hydrothermal systems capable of supporting life long after surface conditions became hostile.
“The porous and fractured rocks created by the impacts create microenvironments where microorganisms can protect themselves from radiation and extreme temperatures,” Pickersgill said in the statement. “Those conditions give life a chance to take hold and flourish, and that’s probably what happened here on Earth billions of years ago.”
His findings were true. published June 9 in Communications Earth & Environment magazine.
