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A nearly naut mi - wide ( 1.6 klick ) divot in a Chinese mountaintop is really an impact volcanic crater from a long - ago meteorite landing .
The newly discovered volcanic crater , located in northeasternChinanot far from the North Korean borderline , is the first sustain mountaintop volcanic crater on Earth . Researchers are n’t certain when the impact pass , but it depart a circular depression and carve up the mountaintop into two peak , known as Front Baijifeng and Rear Baijifeng .
Chinese scientists have found evidence that Baijifeng Mountain was hit by an object from space, resulting in its twin peaks and unique impact structure.
The sight peaks are littered with rock ‘n’ roll sherd make love topically as " ethereal stone , " which turns out to be a scientifically accurate byname . According to a new study , release Sept. 1 in the journalMatter and Radiation at Extremes , rocks on the summit bear the revealing shock practice of an impact with a quad object .
The researchers were connive by the build of the imprint between the stack ’s two peaks , which spans about 4,593 foot ( 1,400 meters ) , and by the detritus - similar scattering of big sandstone fragments on the mountain .
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They collected samples of sandstone and granite from the control surface of the potential crater and examined the vitreous silica minerals within . When floor by huge sum of money of estrus and imperativeness , lechatelierite deforms in a particular way , so the squad front for signs of such deformation . The researchers , led by Ming Chen and Ho - Kwang Mao of the Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research in Shanghai , found dozens of object lesson of these deformation in thin slice of John Rock taken from the crater .
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The granite that makes up the crater formed between 150 million and 172 million years ago , which means the wallop must have happened after this flow , but the exact timing remain unknown , according to the newfangled composition . Weathering rule at one of the only other two confirmed shock craters in China — the Yilan crater in Heilongjiang responsibility — are similar to the patterns seen on Baijifeng , the researchers wrote , suggesting their ages might be alike .
Yilan crater , at 49,000 old age old , is thelargest impact craterunder 100,000 long time old ever establish . The third encroachment crater in China , also confirmed by Chen , is called the Xiuyan crater , also in the area ’s northeast .
A very massive volcanic crater , known only from the scattered glassy rock created by the impact that fell as far away as Australia , may also be eat up beneath the desert in northwestern China , according to research published in August in the journalScientific Reports . But scientists have yet to unveil its location .
