AN IMPACT crater has been found off the shores of Britain. But it’s like nothing else on Earth.
Phil Allen, a consultant geophysicist based near Aberdeen, discovered the crater by chance. Petroleum giant BP had asked him to look at 3D seismic data from a gas field four kilometres below the North Sea. During his analysis, Allen discovered some unusual features in layers of chalk lying above the gas field, one kilometre beneath the seabed (Nature, vol 418, p 520).
What Allen saw looked like a crash site. “I was flabbergasted,” he says, “I’d never seen anything like it.”…
