Chicxulub crater Chicxulub crater The Chicxulub crater (; ) is an impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Its center is located near the town of Chicxulub, after which the crater is named. It was formed by a large asteroid or comet about in diameter, the Chicxulub impactor, striking the Earth. The date of the impact coincides precisely with the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (K–Pg boundary), slightly less than 66 million years ago, and a widely accepted theory is that worldwide climate disruption from the event was the cause of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, a mass extinction in which 75% of plant
Peak ring (crater) develop during crater formation. The peak-ring structure of Chicxulub crater was probably formed as inward-collapsing material impacted the over-steepened central peak, to form a hydraulic jump at the location where the peak ring was located. Other theories have been formulated. Perhaps, in the case of Chicxulub crater, an over-high central peak collapsed into the peak ring. Chicxulub is Earth's only crater to have an intact peak ring structure. More ideas are available. Peak ring (crater) A peak ring crater is a type of complex crater. A central peak is not seen, instead, a roughly circular peak (possibly discontinuous) surrounds the