{"id":865093,"date":"2026-09-29T20:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T20:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/865093\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T20:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T20:24:11","slug":"a-buried-oklahoma-crater-was-dated-to-the-wrong-era-and-it-actually-lines-up-with-a-mass-extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/865093\/","title":{"rendered":"A Buried Oklahoma Crater Was Dated to the Wrong Era\u2014and It Actually Lines Up With a Mass Extinction"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1991, an oil company discovered a giant crater buried under Ames, Oklahoma. Subsequent investigations led researchers to propose the meteor responsible for the structure belonged to the many meteors that struck North America some 470 million years ago. New dating, however, challenges this account\u2014while proposing an entirely different context for this enigmatic crater.<\/p>\n

According to a recently published study<\/a> in Meteoritics & Planetary Science, researchers dated zircon crystals from the site and found that the Ames crater likely formed about 370 million years ago, during the Late Devonian. That represents a whopping 100-million-year gap with the Ordovician meteor event<\/a>, when Earth saw a large increase in meteor events roughly 467 million years ago. Importantly, this now temporally places the Ames crater within another significant period in geological history: the Frasnian\u2013Famennian mass extinction, which drastically reshaped Earth\u2019s marine ecosystems.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter what technique we used, it was coming back to this younger signal,\u201d Elizabeth Catlos, the study\u2019s lead author and an Earth scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cWith this research, we\u2019re basically taking a major pawn out of the Ordovician Meteor Event and dumping it into the Frasnian-Famennian event, and saying, \u2018This is where this impact belongs.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Truly impactful <\/p>\n

A giant rock from space smashing into Earth brings about a number of changes to the local environment. To take the Ordovician meteor event as an example, scientists have proposed<\/a> that the huge flux of chondrites<\/a> from this period contributed heavily to biodiversification on Earth. A more recent study<\/a> also strengthened<\/a> the link between the ice age and this event, which would have generated so much dust that Earth experienced global cooling.<\/p>\n

\"AmesApproximate extent of Ames impact crater. \u00a9 Jstuby via Wikimedia Commons <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Ames crater is among the largest impact structures associated with the Ordovician event with a diameter of roughly 9 miles (15 kilometers), according to the study. As a result, it has been an integral part of theories about the full implications of the Ordovician meteors on Earth\u2019s geological history. Despite its importance, however, scientists had yet to collect high-precision data on the crater\u2019s geochronologic history, the team pointed out in the paper.<\/p>\n

A renewed perspective <\/p>\n

For the latest study, the researchers studied zircon samples from the site using a number of different techniques, including uranium-lead dating, which revealed both the age of the crater and the shock pressure left behind by the meteor. Then, the team collaborated with NASA to confirm that the zircon crystals were indeed affected by the meteor impact.<\/p>\n

\"GeologicalA geological map noting the types of rock that make up the Ames impact structure. The locations of oil and gas wells are noted with arrows. \u00a9 Catlos et al., 2026 <\/p>\n

According to the paper, there was a \u201crecurrence of Devonian dates\u201d across different grains and methods, which provides strong statistical evidence for the Ames crater being younger than previously believed. It\u2019s possible that the younger zircon dates come from \u201clater tectonic events,\u201d but this is less likely as the crater is mostly isolated from major and minor faults in Oklahoma, the team added in the study.<\/p>\n

Equally consequential <\/p>\n

Now, the renewed dates now place the Ames crater in another significant period from Earth\u2019s geological history, namely the Frasnian-Famennian mass extinction event. This period, which scientists have called the \u201cmost devastating biotic crisis<\/a>\u201d at the time, led to huge portions of marine life going extinct. To be clear, this particular meteor, which produced a crater 9 miles wide, was far too small to drive global extinction on its own (but given the timing, it probably added some insult to injury). The precise triggers for this extinction event remain unclear, although a major theory concerns large-scale volcanism.<\/p>\n

In that sense, the latest findings may offer new insights into this particular mystery. As Catlos added in the statement, having a more accurate timeline for Earth\u2019s major extinction events teaches us how our planet operates\u2014especially if the competing theories involve volcanic eruptions and extraterrestrial forces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1991, an oil company discovered a giant crater buried under Ames, Oklahoma. Subsequent investigations led researchers to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[12879,226365,10277,79],"class_list":["post-865093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-geology","tag-mass-extinction","tag-meteorites","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}