Chicxulub impact created 8-million-year hydrothermal system

The asteroid impact that ended the age of dinosaurs also created a vast, long-lived underground environment that may have supported microbial life for at least eight million years, according to new research published this week. The findings significantly extend the estimated lifespan of the hydrothermal system beneath the Chicxulub crater and suggest such impact sites could have been crucial habitats for early life on Earth and potentially on other planets.

The Chicxulub impact occurred 66 million years ago when an asteroid approximately 10 to 15 kilometers wide struck the Yucatán Peninsula in what is now Mexico. The event triggered a global mass extinction, wiping out approximately 75 percent of Earth's species, including all non-avian dinosaurs. It also excavated a crater nearly 200 kilometers wide and unleashed immense heat deep into the crust.

In the aftermath, seawater from the Gulf of Mexico infiltrated the fractured and melted rock, creating a porous, water-filled network beneath the crater. Scientists have long known such hydrothermal systems can support life, but previous estimates, based on early 2000s computer models, suggested the Chicxulub system lasted only about...