Scientists have discovered a massive crater underneath the sea, believed to have been created 66 million years ago by an asteroid, according to a new report.
While it isn't the asteroid that is believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, the crater is believed to have been created around the same time.
The research on the crater and theory was published in the journal Science Advances on Thursday.
Located 248 miles off the coast of West Africa, the Nadir crater could change what we believed to know about the moment in natural history.
The research says that the crater is in total 5 miles wide and is believed to have been caused by an asteroid more than 1,300 feet wide.
The Chicxulub crater off the coast of Mexico was hit by a smaller asteroid, but it still led to the mass extinction of much of life. If an asteroid created this crater, then it would have caused severe damage to the Earth, according to researchers.
Uisdean Nicholson of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh shared with CNN that he stumbled upon the crater by accident when he was reviewing seismic data for another project.
He said that while looking at the data collected, he stumbled upon the crate-like feature, which "had all the characteristics of an impact crater."
While they aren't entirely sure if an asteroid strike caused it, it has all of the features scientists have come to expect, including the rims' height, the central uplift's height, and the ratio of crater width to depth.
But to be sure whether or not it was a space rock that impacted, scientists would need to drill into the crater and test the minerals present.
But if it was caused by an asteroid, Nicholson says the aftermath would be cataclysmic.
"There would have been a large earthquake (magnitude 6.5 - 7), so significant ground shaking locally," Nicholson shared with CNN. "The air blast would have been heard across the globe, and would have itself caused severe local damage across the region."
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