Rochechouart crater

the Rochecouart area
The Rochechouart crater as it might have looked a few years after impact.

The Rochechouart crater is a place in France where a meteorite, a rock from outer space, hit the surface of the Earth, leaving a crater. The meteorite hit came during the Jurassic or Triassic period.[1][2] Rochechouart is between the Haute-Vienne and the Charente.

The last four estimates (since 2010) are converging toward an age between 203 and 207 million years, in the Rhaetian,[3][4][5] two to five million years older than the TriassicJurassic boundary.

Some scientists think that the Rochechouart crater is part of a group of five craters that happened at about the same time. They think a large meteor or comet broke into pieces and many of the pieces hit the Earth.[2]

References

  1. P. Lambert (1977). "Rochechouart impact crater: Statistical geochemical investigations and meteoric contamination". Impact and Explosion Cratering. Pergimon Press: 449–460. Bibcode:1977iecp.symp..449L. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
  2. 2.0 2.1 The Rochechouart impact structure. Impact Structures. http://www.impact-structures.com/impact-france/the-rochechouart-impact-structure/. Retrieved February 8, 2021. 
  3. Schmieder, M.; Buchner, E.; Schwarz, W. H.; Trieloff, M.; Lambert, P. (2010). "A Rhaetian 40Ar/39Ar age for the Rochechouart impact structure (France) and implications for the latest Triassic sedimentary record". Meteoritics & Planetary Science. 45 (8): 1225–1242. Bibcode:2010M&PS...45.1225S. doi:10.1111/j.1945-5100.2010.01070.x. S2CID 129154084.
  4. Horne A (2016). (U-Th)/He, U/Pb, and radiation damage dating of the Rochechouart-Chassenon impact structure, Master's thesis. Arizona State University. pp. 63 pp.
  5. Cohen, Benjamin E.; Mark, Darren F.; Lee, Martin R.; Simpson, Sarah L. (2017-08-01). "A new high-precision 40Ar/39Ar age for the Rochechouart impact structure: At least 5 Ma older than the Triassic–Jurassic boundary" (PDF). Meteoritics & Planetary Science. 52 (8): 1600–1611. Bibcode:2017M&PS...52.1600C. doi:10.1111/maps.12880. ISSN 1945-5100. S2CID 3521507.