PLANET EARTH
Massive meteorite impact created the hottest mantle rock ever
WORDS STEPHANIE PAPPAS
The rock was found within the Mistastin impact crater in Labrador, Canada, shown here in this satellite image
The hottest rock ever discovered in Earth’s crust, a fist-sized piece of black glass, was discovered in 2011 and was formed in temperatures reaching 2,370 degrees Celsius – hotter than much of the Earth’s mantle. A new analysis of minerals from the same site revealed that this record-scorching heat was real. The rocks melted and reformed in a meteorite impact about 36 million years ago in what is today Labrador, Canada. The impact formed a 17-mile-wide crater, where Michael Zanetti, then a doctoral student at Washington University in St Louis, picked up the glassy rock during a Canadian Space Agency-funded study of how to coordinate astronauts and rovers working together to explore another planet or moon.