New Dating Shifts Oklahoma's Ames Crater to Mass Extinction Era
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have revised the age of the Ames meteor impact structure in Oklahoma, determining it formed approximately 370 million years ago rather than the previously believed 467.5 million years ago. This 100-million-year adjustment removes the crater from the Ordovician Meteor Event and aligns it with the Late Devonian period, specifically near the Frasnian-Famennian mass extinction. The study, published in Meteoritics & Planetary Science, utilized zircon crystal dating to correct earlier estimates that relied on fossil evidence, which had inadvertently incorporated older material churned up by the impact. This reclassification has significant implications for understanding the causes of major extinction events and the history of asteroid debris in Earth's orbit.
