Cataclysm at Meteor Crater: Crystal sheds light on Earth, moon, Mars July 26, 2016 by David Tenenbaum Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Crystals extracted from a rubble pile collected a century ago by prospectors at Meteor Crater showed extreme temperatures and pressures during the impact that created the crater 49,000 years ago. Credit: Aaron Cavosie In molten sandstone extracted by prospectors a century ago, an international team of scientists has discovered microscopic crystals telling of unimaginable pressures and temperatures when a 12-kilometer asteroid formed Meteor Crater in northern Arizona some 49,000 years ago. The crystals, called zircons, have endured temperatures of 2,000 degrees Celsius or more, hot enough to melt any rock on Earth. In our planet's crust, such temperatures occur only briefly inside impact zones, says Aaron Cavosie, a visiting professor in the Wisconsin Astrobiology Research Consortium at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-07-cataclysm-meteor-crater-crystal-earth.html#jCp