Underground crater reveals how broken rocks can flow like liquid
Chicxulub, which lies underneath the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, is the best-preserved large impact crater on Earth. It’s also the only crater on the planet with a mountainous ring of smashed rocks inside its outer rim, called a peak ring. How these features form has long been debated, but a new study in Nature shows they’re a product of extremely strong vibrations in the Earth that let rock flow like liquid for a crucial few minutes after the impact.