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LiveScience
LiveScience
Sascha Pare

Wilkes Land crater: The giant hole in East Antarctica's gravitational field likely caused by a meteorite

Antarctica Earth East Antarctica
Map of Antarctica showing virtual deformation values. The Wilkes Land anomaly is clearly visible in the bottom right corner of the map.
QUICK FACTS

Name: Wilkes Land crater

Location: East Antarctica

Coordinates: 70°S 120°E

Why it's incredible: Evidence suggests it could be the greatest known impact crater on Earth.

The Wilkes Land crater is a hole in the bedrock beneath East Antarctica's ice sheet measuring 315 miles (510 kilometers) across. Researchers have been trying to explain its existence since the 1960s, and the most recent evidence suggests it was born from a cataclysmic meteorite impact.

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