Ames Crater Re-dated to 370 Million Years Ago, Linking It to a Major Mass Extinction
A team from the University of Texas at Austin has determined that the Ames meteor impact crater in Oklahoma is approximately 100 million years younger than previously thought. New zircon crystal dating places the impact at 370 million years ago, aligning it with the Late Devonian Frasnian-Famennian mass extinction rather than the older Ordovician Meteor Event. This reclassification removes the crater from a proposed global asteroid ring theory and links it to a period of severe marine life loss, potentially influencing theories on whether extraterrestrial impacts or volcanic activity drove major extinctions.
