RE: Big 250 mya Crater Found In Antarctica

[john hunt <john.bass@ntlworld.com>]

And what about this: 
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/05/040514025854.htm

250mya craters seem to be turning up all the time!  This one is only a
tiddler though.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu] On Behalf Of
Richard W. Travsky
Sent: 02 June 2006 16:43
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: Big 250 mya Crater Found In Antarctica



http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-2006060
1-18311100-bc-us-giantcrater.xml

COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 1 (UPI) -- U.S. planetary scientists report finding 
evidence of a meteor impact much larger than the one believed responsible 
for the extinction of dinosaurs.

The 300-mile-wide crater lies more than a mile beneath the East Antarctic 
Ice Sheet and might date to about 250 million years ago -- the time of the 
Permian-Triassic extinction, when nearly all animal life on Earth became 
extinct.

Its size and location -- in the Wilkes Land region of East Antarctica, 
south of Australia -- suggest it could have begun the breakup of the 
Gondwana supercontinent by creating the tectonic rift that pushed 
Australia northward.

Scientists believe the Permian-Triassic extinction paved the way for 
dinosaurs to rise to prominence. The Wilkes Land crater is more than five 
times the size of the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan peninsula, which 
marks the impact that may have ultimately killed the dinosaurs 65 million 
years ago.

Ohio State University researchers who made the discovery collaborated with 
the National Aeornautics and Space Administration, Russian and South 
Korean scientists in the study.

The preliminary results of their research were presented during a recent 
poster session at the American Geophysical Union Joint Assembly meeting in 
Baltimore.