SANTA BARBARA, Calif., May 13 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists said Thursday they have found evidence of an ancient impact crater that might be associated with the largest extinction event in history.
Scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said the crater, called Bedout -- and pronounced "BEE-dew" -- appears to be buried off the northwestern coast of Australia.
Most scientists agree a meteor impact, called Chicxulub, in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, accompanied the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. But until now, the time of an event called the Great Dying, about 250 million years ago, when 90 percent of marine and 80 percent of land life perished, lacked evidence and a location for a similar impact event.
At the time of the impact Earth was configured as one primary land mass called Pangea and a super ocean called Panthalassa.
