Scientists in Australia find ‘smoking gun’ evidence of world’s oldest meteorite strike

The well-preserved rock formations in the North Pole Dome crater in the Pilbara region of Western Australia offer ‘a rare glimpse of the violent processes that shaped the early Earth’. Photograph: Curtin University

A meteorite that struck Earth three billion years ago left behind a “smoking gun” – evidence of the world’s oldest impact crater in a remote part of Australia.

Ancient rocks in Western Australia’s Pilbara region record the event, which occurred during the Archean eon, a period 4 to 2.5 billion years ago, when tectonic plates were beginning to form and early life emerging.