Eltanin impact

- 57.783333333333 - 90.783333333333Koordinaten: 57 ° 47 '0 " S, 90 ° 47 ' 0 " W

Eltanin is the name of a former asteroid and left by him impact structure on the seabed of the South Pacific.

The asteroid suggested about 2.2 million years ago - in the early Pleistocene - at the edge of the Bellingshausen Sea one, west of the Antarctic Peninsula and southwest of Chile. The area of impact is around 5000 meters water depth. It has a diameter of a few hundred kilometers and is covered by a 20-40 meter thick sediment layer. The impactor had a diameter of about a kilometer at a speed of about 20 km / s and an impact energy of about 100 gigatons of TNT, which has met about five million Hiroshima bombs.

The asteroid impact of the Eltanin is the only known in a deep ocean basins. He was discovered in 1981 on the basis of an increased concentration of iridium and meteoritic fragments in sediment cores that had been promoted in 1965 to the U.S. research vessel Eltanin. 1995 and 2001 were carried out with the German polar research vessel Polarstern two targeted expeditions; The international team of researchers examined the area by means of sound waves and using additional sediment cores. In the relief of the ocean floor is not the preserved impact craters could be detected.