The Chicxulub crater in Mexico is set to be examined by a group of scientists to find out how life recovered after an asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
The team, made up of scientists from the University of Texas, the National University of Mexico and the International Ocean Discovery Program, hope to understand how microbial life sprung from the site by examining remnants of the asteroid itself. "Chicxulub is the only preserved structure with an intact peak ring that we can get to," Sean Gulick, chief scientist for the project, told Science. "All the other ones are either on another planet, or they've been eroded."
500 meters of limestone are set to be drilled through by the team, with a series of three meter long 'core samples' being extracted from the site. Eventually the drill will reach up to 1,500 meters below sea level in the hunt for DNA samples and other information hidden in the rock.
The impact of the asteroid in modern day Mexico is frequently cited as the reason dinosaurs were wiped out.
Because it was so large -- displacing 50,000 miles of sediment -- it caused catastrophic earthquakes and tsunamis. Some scientists believe the asteroid released over a billion times the energy than the atomic bomb dropped at Hiroshima.
The team hope to study both the structure of the peak ring and the role the crater played in helping life on Earth recover after the collision. Microbes may still live inside the crater, and DNA samples collected by the drill may also be able to identify genes related to long-dead microbes.
The project is set to start in late March, with a team working day and night to operate the drill.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
