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
Kauhakō Crater the surface of the lake and lifeforms, including shrimp and plankton, to disappear. Kauhakō Crater is thought to have formed around 230,000 to 300,000 years ago. Somewhere within this time period, Pu'u 'Uao, an undersea volcano located near what is now the peninsula, first erupted. After this, it continued to erupt several more times, spewing hot, fast lava. When this lava eventually cooled, the peninsula was formed, including Kauhakō Crater. Kauhakō Crater is found in the center of the Kalaupapa Peninsula. It is located inside a volcanic rim, which is roughly above sea level, making it the highest point on