Chicxulub Impact Crater May Have Been a Hotbed of Life for 8 Million Years

The impact was destructive. It kicked up tsunamis and dropped hot debris that annihilated non-avian dinosaurs and many other species. At the bottom of the ocean, however, the strike generated enough heat to create a hydrothermal system that persisted for 8 million years. According to Ars Technica, that system may have been a hotbed of life.

The collision was intense enough to cause deformation far beneath the surface. Subterranean effects reached 35 km (almost 22 miles) down and included the melting of an immense amount of rock. When that rock was exposed to seawater, it became porous. As hot water seeped into the pores, a hydrothermal system formed. The hot water gushing into an isolated region of the freezing depths could have attracted microorganisms and possibly other life forms that were otherwise struggling to survive.

The samples drilled in 2016 provided more insight into what happened in the immediate and long-term aftermath of the cataclysmic event, Ars Technica reports. Researchers studied the types of rock that had formed as a result of the asteroid strike.

The same impact that eliminated non-avian dinosaurs and many other species created a subsurface environment where hot water circulated through porous rock for millions of years. In an otherwise frigid ocean, that isolated hydrothermal region may have drawn microorganisms and other life forms.