The 180km-wide crater off Mexico that ended the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Buried under sediment until oil-company gravity surveys revealed it in the 1980s.
The Chicxulub crater is an impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The crater is named after the onshore inland community of Chicxulub Pueblo. It was formed slightly over 66 million years ago when an asteroid, about ten kilometers in diameter, struck Earth. The crater is estimated to be 200 km (120 mi) in diameter and is buried to a depth of about 1 km (0.6 mi) beneath younger sedimentary rocks. It is one of the largest impact structures on Earth, alongside the much older Sudbury and Vredefort impact structures, and the only one whose peak ring is intact and directly accessible for scientific research.