'Fried Egg' may be impact crater

BBC News ^ | Friday, December 18, 2009 | Jonathan Amos

[SunkenCiv]

Portuguese scientists have found a depression on the Atlantic Ocean floor they think may be an impact crater.

The roughly circular, 6km-wide hollow has a broad central dome and has been dubbed the "Fried Egg" because of its distinctive shape.

It was detected to the south of the Azores Islands during a survey to map the continental shelf.

If the Fried Egg was made by a space impactor, the collision probably took place within the past 17 million years...

It lies under 2km of water about 150km from the Azores archipelago.

The depressed ring sits roughly 110m below the surrounding ocean bottom, with the circular dome-shaped central uplift 3km in diameter and with a base-to-top height of some 300m...

A volcanic origin for the Fried Egg seems unlikely because the Portuguese team has not been able to find any lava flows within the structure or on its surroundings.

Interestingly, there is another - but much smaller - feature just 3-4km to the west of the egg.

[stormer]

I also wonder if there is any vertical exaggeration in the original image that would make the central mounts appear more profound (not uncommon to demonstrate morphology).

[John-Irish]

A ‘’fried egg’’ crater? Sounds more like a’’ scrambled’’one:-)

[Mike Darancette]

Interestingly, there is another - but much smaller - feature just 3-4km to the west of the egg.

It would seem that the big crater happened sometime after the smaller feature.

[UCANSEE2]

The real key to why the fried egg effect, is whether the area was covered in water, as it is now.

[UCANSEE2]

More interesting to me is the fact that scientists say that if the Earth were struck by an object that large, it would wipe out all higher life forms. So how did the higher life forms we have survive that?

Maybe we were not the higher life form?

[BenLurkin]

Oh, everyone knows what caused those...

[stormer]

A little red ‘X’?

[BenLurkin]

Hmmm...

Apparently so.

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

Most of those impacts seem to be missing the central uplift...perhaps due to differing substrate materials at the point of impact...

The Moon has a very small iron core(in proportion to Earth). Mars also has a small core and it seems to be solid rather then molten. I expect that might explain the difference in appearance as an impact on Earth's crust would look more like a stone dropped into water (and frozen immediately) as opposed to a bullet fired into a rock surface.

Regards,
GtG

[razorback-bert]

Haven’t they been hunting an impact crater in the Azores for a long time?

[zot]

Thanks for posting the photos. They show very clearly what happened. Fascinating.

[stormer]

Not sure if they've been looking for an impact crater, but the Portuguese government is looking into ways to redefine its continental shelf in order to expand its territory. It was this exploration that led to this discovery.

[Swordmaker]

More interesting to me is the fact that scientists say that if the Earth were struck by an object that large, it would wipe out all higher life forms. So how did the higher life forms we have survive that?

six kilometers is not that big... not any where as big as the 241 KM diameter of the crater left from the event that is thought to have ended the reign of the dinosaurs...

[Swordmaker]

Multiple lightning strikes...

[Hot Tabasco]

If the Fried Egg was made by a space impactor, the collision probably took place within the past 17 million years...

I vaguely remember seeing the flash across the sky but I might be mistaken too.........I think I was caught up in trying to light a fire with some sticks.

[SunkenCiv]

hope you remembered sun block.

[SunkenCiv]

Could be.