The meteor impact hypothesis<\/p>\n
The Silverpit Crater was first described<\/a> in 2002 by geophysicists Simon Stewart and Phil Allen. Their theory? That it was a meteorite impact crater, which could make it the first ever found near Great Britain. By their estimations, the giant smack-in-the-planet occurred around 45 million years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n Features of the Silverpit Crater that would seem to fit with a meteorite impact include a central peak<\/a>, something we often find at the middle of impact sites. There\u2019s also a layer of sediment that appears to have formed over where the chunk was taken out, so we\u2019ve got disturbed sediment going back to the Cretaceous chalk and Jurassic shale layers, but that\u2019s all been covered by undisturbed Paleogene sediment<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s known as the “meteor impact hypothesis” because it is just that, a hypothesis, and it\u2019s not the only one. There\u2019s another (much saltier) theory as to how the Silverpit Crater was formed.<\/p>\n Where you’ll find the Silverpit Crater in the North Sea.<\/p>\n The halokinesis hypothesis<\/p>\n An alternative theory was put forward by geologist John Underhill in 2004, who thought that the Silverpit Crater wasn\u2019t the result of something smacking into the ground, but something being taken out of it. Salt, specifically. The geological process is known as salt withdrawal<\/a> and it happens when subsurface salt layers shift and collapse. The sediment on top then becomes unstable, and collapses into basins that closely resemble impact craters.<\/p>\n There have been a few studies to support this idea, including seismic imaging data that shows features including diapirs and salt lows<\/a> \u2013 telltale signs of salt tectonics, known to science as halokinesis. The salt theory makes a compelling argument, but the debate charges on.<\/p>\n In 2025, a fresh analysis concluded there are shocked minerals<\/a> below the crater. These are distinctive damage structures you find in quartz and feldspar grains (something we’ve used to date the fossil teeth of ancient humans<\/a>) in places where there\u2019s been a high-pressure impact. The analysis also used numerical modeling to establish what it would\u2019ve taken, and concluded that the meteor would\u2019ve needed to be 160 meters (525 feet) across to punch a hole out of Britain like that (the least we deserve).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n