3D seismic data and shocked minerals confirm impact origin of Silverpit Crater

A team of researchers led by Heriot-Watt University has confirmed that the Silverpit Crater in the southern North Sea formed through an asteroid impact during the middle Eocene, between 43 and 46 million years ago. As reported by nature.com, the findings combine 3D seismic imaging, petrographic examination of well samples, and numerical simulations to resolve a two-decade debate over the feature's origins nature.comnature.comnature.comOpen source ↗.

High-resolution 3D seismic datasets fully revealed the morphology of the buried structure, including a central uplift, an annular moat, a surrounding damage zone, and secondary craters on the contemporaneous seabed nature.comnature.comnature.comOpen source ↗. Analysis of fault networks—showing normal faults uprange and reverse faults downrange—indicates a low-angle impact trajectory arriving from the west. The primary crater spans 3.2 kilometers in diameter at the mid-Eocene horizon, while ring faults extend across a diameter of roughly 20 kilometers.

Shock lamellae confirm extreme pressures

Definitive petrographic evidence was identified in core samples from the 43/25-1 exploration well situated near the crater rim nature.comnature.comnature.comOpen source ↗. Geologists identified shock lamellae in mineral grains from reworked ejecta sequences, which register peak shock pressures between 10 and 13 gigapascals nature.comnature.comnature.comOpen source ↗. Such extreme transient pressures do not arise from typical endogenous crustal or tectonic processes.

Numerical models and geological data indicate that the striking body was an asteroid measuring approximately 160 meters across. The hypervelocity collision displaced massive volumes of target sediment and seawater, driving an ejecta plume 1.5 kilometers into the atmosphere and generating a marine tsunami with wave heights exceeding 100 meters.

Subsurface marine impacts

The structure represents a critical addition to the terrestrial record, which contains only roughly 200 confirmed impact craters, of which approximately 33 are marine structures nature.comnature.comnature.comOpen source ↗. Silverpit joins the Nadir Crater offshore West Africa as one of the few marine craters completely documented through comprehensive 3D reflection seismic volumes nature.comnature.comnature.comOpen source ↗.

Preserved below post-Eocene sediments, the structure allows direct analysis of subsurface crater deformation, such as devolatilization across the central chalk uplift nature.comnature.comnature.comOpen source ↗. These datasets provide baseline parameters for modeling high-velocity impact physics in layered marine sedimentary targets across Earth and other planetary bodies.