EPSS Colloquium fall-2021

The Chicxulub impact crater is famous for its link to a mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous, but is increasingly the focus of studies evaluating the resurgence and evolution of life in a post-impact setting. A recent expedition drilled into the Chicxulub peak ring demonstrating the crater had a porous, permeable subsurface environment; that the crater hosted a vast hydrothermal system; and that the system hosted a microbial ecosystem. The new finding is an important milestone and suggests that impact sites during the Hadean could have hosted similar systems that provided niches for the early evolution of life on our planet.