A shocking diamond shock matrix, iron oxide spheres, and distorted quartz… spanning 200 meters, can only be the result of a confrontation between Earth and an extraterrestrial attacker. This has been discovered in a vineyard in France.
According to Sci-News, an ancient impact crater measuring up to 200 meters in diameter and 30 meters deep has been identified in the heart of a vineyard named Domaine du Météore near the town of Béziers in southern France.
The vineyard in France is situated above an ancient meteorite impact crater – (Photo: Goethe University Frankfurt).
Such craters are still considered small, quite rare, and difficult to provide evidence for their impact origins, especially if the remnants of the impacting material are missing. Therefore, this discovery has immediately garnered attention.
According to Professor Frank Brenker, a geologist and cosmologist at Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany) and the head of the research team, there are many interpretations for a depression on Earth. This depression was actually first mentioned 70 years ago, but the initial hypothesis of a meteorite crater was dismissed a few years later.
“However, I find many alternative explanations for how this depression formed unconvincing from a geological perspective,” Professor Brenker stated.
He and his colleagues decided to re-investigate the crater with its unusual magnetic properties, featuring two streams running from north to south.
This time, with the help of strong magnets attached to a plate, they discovered small iron oxide spheres within the impact crater, along with other samples containing iron and nickel, encasing a mineral core characteristic of asteroid impact crater environments.
Another significant discovery was the presence of a “shock” diamond matrix, which can only be formed under the extreme pressures during an extraterrestrial impact.
A total of 100 strange spheres were collected, indicating similarities with other impact spheres found worldwide and confirming the hypothesis of an extraterrestrial attacker.
The dating of the impact has yet to be determined, but it certainly dates back to a very ancient time. Most large impacts occurred in the early stages of the planet’s history when the young Solar System was still undergoing intense activity.
They will present their findings next month at the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC 2023).
