The Isle of Skye in Scotland is a beautiful island, with a magnificent landscape that is steeped in history and enchantment.
And now, to add to this sense of ancient history, geologists have discovered evidence that a meteorite hit the Isle of Skye around 60 million years ago.
The scientists were analysing volcanic rocks on the Scottish island, believing them to be the deposit of volcanic flow. However, research showed that the rock contained rare minerals from outer space, vanadium-rich and niobium-rich osbornite. These minerals have never been recorded on earth, but have been collected by NASA, found as space dust in the trail of the Wild 2 comet.
#BBKresearch: Birkbeck’s Simon Drake, Andy Beard, Hilary Downes and Jergus Baca were part of a team of #geologists who discovered the #meteorite impact on the Isle of Skye, including minerals never before reported on Earth. https://t.co/LWDkit7xiD
— Birkbeck Uni London (@BirkbeckNews) December 14, 2017
The extraterrestrial minerals were found at An Carnach on the Strathaird Peninsula. At another location on the island, seven kilometres away, a two-metre-thick layer of material expelled from a crater was found to have the same unusual mineralogy.
“When we discovered what it was we were very surprised and it was a bit of a shock because we were not expecting that,” lead co-author of the study, Dr Andrew Beard of the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department at Birkbeck, University of London, told Metro.
“We initially considered it to be volcanic rock so it was a bit of a shock when we realised what we had found.”
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The analysis, published in Geology this week, suggests that the meteoric impact occurred between 60 million and 61.4 million years ago. According to the researchers, this is the first meteorite impact found within the British Palaeogene Igneous Province (BPIP).
The research team had to brave harsh terrain to get to the site, but for them it was worth it in the end.
