AN ASTEROID that wiped out huge swathes of life when it collided with Earth 360 million years ago may also have brought with it untapped mineral wealth.
Robert Iasky of Western Australia’s Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources (DMPR) discovered the 120-kilometre wide Woodleigh impact crater accidentally as he was drilling for coal near Shark Bay, 650 kilometres north of Perth. When Iasky and his colleagues drilled down into the crater, which is buried under up to 600 metres of rock and sand, they discovered a huge chunk of dense granite that had been dragged upwards as the ground rebounded when the asteroid hit.…
