The mouth of the Wilkes Land 510 km wide in the East of the East can be formed by ancient meteorites and the largest collision hole on earth.
Wilkes Land’s mouth in gravity map. Image: Kangaroo, Kostelecky & Bezděk
The mouth of Wilkes Land is a low -lying area located on the base layer below the eastern ice shelf, with a diameter of 510 km. The researchers seek to explain its existence since the 1960s, the most recent evidence showed that this pit’s mouth was born from a meteorite collision. Wilkes Land’s mouth was first discovered as a giant dent at the Earth’s attractive field. Survey of gravity and seismic on the ground initially indicates the mouth of 240 km wide but the newer technique reveals it twice the size of that size, Live Science On 11/4 reported.
According to a 2018 study, Wilkes Land’s mouth was at a depth of about 1.6 km below the surface of the Antarctic ice shelf. Experts checked the oral pit more detailed than before and considered its potential relationship with southern Australia, once associated with Eastern extreme until 35 million years ago. Although not sure the origin of the pit mouth, the research results determine the event that creates a hole mouth that is likely to occur before the continents separate.
Researchers propose some hypotheses about the mouth of Wilkes Land, including this may be volcanic structure, sedimentary tanks, valleys that are eroded deep or meteorite collision. Scientists use satellite remote sensing techniques to map the mouth map and identify its characteristics. In the middle of the gap in the gravity field of the Earth, they found an abnormal area of the positive gravity (gravity there is larger than usual), with the shelf filling the gap around the center at the center like a large bracelet.
The peak in the center can be the structure called the mascon concentration area. Mascon can occur inside the meteorite collision structure pierced through the Earth’s shell and affect the underneath. After the collision, the coating may extrude, creating an abnormal gravity. The mouth of the Wilkes Land and its mascon is not the perfect circle but the U -shaped form, prove the hypothesis of the hole created by the meteorite collision. The northern part of the pit’s mouth is broken, it may be the result from the process of assisting Australia and Antarctica.
If Wilkes Land is a collision hole, this will be the largest collision hole ever known on Earth in size. The diameter of the pit’s mouth is suitable for the speed and size of the meteorites often crashed into the earth in the early days of 3.8 – 4.1 billion years ago.