This giant “pit” is located in northeastern China, which is about 2 kilometers in diameter, and was the subject of study. A team of researchers led by Ming Chen, a scientist from the Canton Institute of Geochemistry, believes they have solved the mystery and even To announce when this crater was formed.

A meteorite hit Earth 10,000 years ago

No, it was not the meteorite that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, not even the oldest recorded. By way of comparison, the diameter of the Manitsuke crater in Greenland is 30 kilometers, while the diameter of the Yilan crater “shyly” is 1.85 kilometers.

But it’s not just its size that has caught the researchers’ interest. By studying it, the latter came to the conclusion that it was indeed a meteor crater, caused by a celestial body, and, accordingly, Crashed on our planet about 50,000 years ago. On a human level, this might seem a long way off, but this would be the “largest” meteorite crater less than 10,000 years old.

crescent-shaped crater

“The presence of sediments with a thickness of 110 meters indicates that the lake originated in the crater after the formation of the shock structure and that The nozzle must have a full circumference at the beginning“, Researchers say. Oddly enough, the impact has a crescent shape rather than a full circle and no one knows why a third of this crater is no longer visible.

One thing is for sure, however: 50,000 years ago, our ancestors actually inhabited a land He must have been surprised by this curious but noisy spectacle.