Researchers have discovered one of the rarest minerals on Earth buried deep within an ancient meteorite crater in Western Australia.
The ultra-rare mineral known as reidite was found deep within the long-buried Woodleigh Crater near Shark Bay, approximately 750 kilometres north of Perth.
The reidite is only formed under the extreme pressure created when rocks from outer space slam into the Earth’s crust.
It is only the sixth time the mineral has been discovered on Earth.
Curtin University research superviser Aaron Cavosie said reidite started life as a far more common mineral – zircon – and only transformed into reidite during the pressure of impact.
Woodleigh has long been buried beneath younger sedimentary rocks, so its size is not yet known and remains hotly debated.
Previous research estimated the crater to be between 60 to 120 kilometres in diameter.
If Woodleigh is found to have a diameter of more than 100 kilometres it would be classified as the largest impact crater in Australia.
Wikipedia agrees. Acraman would then be the second largest confirmed crater with a diameter of 90 km. Https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_impact_craters_in_Australia
There are unconfirmed impact craters that may be larger, including Bedout 200 km, Warbuton 200 km and (Massive_Australian_Precambrian/Cambrian_Impact_Structure,MAPCIS) 2,000 km. MAPCIS has been proposed as the disaster that ended the Precambrian and kicked off the Cambrian.