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What caused Arizona’s Meteor Crater, and how old is it?
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Earth impact hazard
An artist's rendering of the impact of a near-Earth object 66 million years ago in what is today the Caribbean region. Many scientists think that the collision of a large asteroid or comet nucleus with Earth triggered the mass extinction of dinosaurs and many other species near the end of the Cretaceous Period.
Arizona’s Meteor Crater was produced by the impact of a large meteorite. This event released an enormous amount of kinetic energy, creating a bowl-shaped pit through a process known as hypervelocity impact, which is physically similar to an atomic bomb explosion. The crater's meteoritic origin was confirmed by the discovery of coesite and stishovite, which are high-pressure modifications of silica formed during such impacts.12
Regarding its age, estimates have varied over time, ranging between 5,000 and 50,000 years.1