Silver Pit - North SeaThe Silverpit crater is a sub-sea structure under the North Sea off the coast of the United Kingdom. The crater-like form was discovered in 2001 during the analysis of seismic data (scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth) collected during routine exploration for oil, and was initially reported as the UK's first known impact crater.
The Silver Pit is a long valley which lies in the bed of the North Sea, 45 km (27 miles) east of Spurn Head in England. The Outer Silver Pit is a west-to-east valley in the bed of the North Sea. Its widest part is 125 to 175 km (75 to 105 miles) east of Flamborough Head in England. It lies between the Dogger Bank and the ridge dividing the northern from the southern North Sea basins, which runs between Norfolk and Friesland. The Silverpit Formation is salt and other deposits laid down in a desert lake (like the Great Salt Lake or the Dead Sea) during the early Permian, before the influx of the Zechstein Sea (an ancient Permian period sea). The Silver Pit's age is thought to be about of 65 million years old, making its formation roughly coincident with the impact that created the Chicxulub Crater which was the impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. If Silver pit is indeed an impact crater, this may imply that the Earth was struck at that time by several objects, possibly in a similar event to the collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter in 1994. |
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