A buried meteorite crater in Oklahoma has been redated to approximately 370 million years ago, a discovery that shifts the timeline of the event by nearly a century compared to earlier scientific estimates.
According to data published by Science Daily, the analysis of zircon crystals extracted from the site indicates that the Ames impact occurred during the Devonian period rather than the Ordovician. This finding effectively removes the crater from the previously hypothesized Ordovician bombardment event, which was once thought to be linked to a possible debris ring surrounding Earth.
Instead, the updated dating aligns the impact with a significant mass extinction event that devastated marine populations. Scientists suggest the temporal proximity between the asteroid strike and the ecological collapse may warrant further investigation into the potential connection between the two phenomena.
Zircon dating is fascinating. It’s wild how much our historical timeline can shift with better technology and fresh analysis.
Does this mean the impact might actually trigger that Devonian mass extinction? I’d love to see more research on that link.
Wow, a full hundred million years off? Science really is all about recalibrating our understanding of the past.