Researchers Discover 'Largest Ever Asteroid Impact' Area In Australia

Researchers have discovered the largest asteroid impact area in Australia, spanning over 400-kilometre (250-mile) wide area. The area consists of two separate impact scars.

According to researchers who discovered it, the asteroid broke into two before it hit, with each fragment more than 10km across.

Researchers believe the impact occurred at least 300 million years ago.

The surface crater has long since disappeared from central Australia's Warburton Basin but geophysical modelling below the surface found evidence of two massive impacts, said Dr Andrew Glikson, who led the ANU team.

"It would have been curtains for many life species on the planet at the time," said Dr Glikson.

However, the researchers are yet to connect it with any known extinction.

"It's a mystery - we can't find an extinction event that matches these collisions," Dr Glikson added. "I have a suspicion the impact could be older than 300 million years."

The rocks around the impact zone are roughly 300 to 600 million years old, but a layer of ash that would have been thrown up by the impact has not been detected as sediment in rock layers from the same period, BBC reported.

"Large impacts like these may have had a far more significant role in the Earth's evolution than previously thought," Dr Glikson noted.

The findings were detailed in the journal Tectonophysics.