This single discovery means that we can study the effects of cratering on the Earth nearly a billion years further back in time than was possible before, according to Dr Iain McDonald of Cardiff Universitys School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, who was part of the team. It is possible or even likely that the meteorite hit the sea, for the preserved rocks have been intensely altered by circulating hot aqueous fluids. These fluids were likely derived from sea water that would have been able to penetrate deep into the Earth's crust through the numerous fissures and crush zones generated by the impact. Boris A. Ivanov at the Institute of Planetary Science, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, has carried out a series of provisional model calculations, which suggest that the impacting meteorite at Maniitsoq may have had a diameter of more than 30 km, i.e., about twice the size of the Vredefort meteorite and with a mass about ten times larger. Also, the second largest impact structure on Earth, the 1.85 billion years old Sudbury crater in Canada, hosts world-class mineral deposits - in this case nickel-rich minerals that were melted and concentrated by the extreme heating caused by the impact.
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