GlasgowChicxulub’s hydrothermal system stayed hot for 8 million years.
That is at least 4 times longer than the 2 million years previously thought.
Potassium-argon dating of feldspar from a 1 km drill core showed heat from 66 to 58 million years ago.
The work does not show whether anything lived there, and microbes have colonised only 8 of 70 such craters.
Lead author Annemarie Pickersgill says larger impact basins elsewhere may have held habitable heat even longer.
How each outlet framed it
- Ars Technica
- emphasizes hydrothermal system's 8-million-year persistence post-impact, with seawater heating porous rock 35km deep, potentially sheltering microbial ocean life
Sources: Ars Technica