Nadir crater

Undersea impact crater off West African coast

The Nadir crater is an undersea feature on the Guinea Plateau in the Atlantic Ocean. It is 248 mi (400 km) off the coast of Guinea.

Map and regional seismic sections showing location of Nadir Crater

It is thought to be an impact crater. The feature is around 8.5-km-wide. The paper announcing the discovery of the feature was published in Science Advances in 2022.[1][2]

It has been suggested that the structure should be drilled to confirm or disprove the impact origin.[3]

References

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  1. Nicholson, Uisdean; Bray, Veronica J.; Gulick, Sean P. S.; Aduomahor, Benedict (17 August 2022). "The Nadir Crater offshore West Africa: A candidate Cretaceous-Paleogene impact structure". Science Advances. 8 (33): eabn3096. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abn3096. PMC 9385158. PMID 35977017. S2CID 251646087.
  2. It was formed at or near the CretaceousPaleogene boundary about 66 million years ago, around the same time as the Chicxulub crater.
  3. "Into the Nadir: a new Cretaceous-Paleogene impact structure?". IODP. 2021. Archived from the original on 25 September 2021. Retrieved 18 August 2022. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)