Greenland crater: Huge crater the size of Paris FOUND under Greenland’s ice

Greenland, known as the world’s largest island, has a nature entirely contradictory to its name and currently has a massive crater sitting at the bottom of a thick layer of ice. More than 80 percent of the island’s surface is ice, meaning there are huge amounts of yet undiscovered details underneath. The latest discovery has been made by scientists using ground-penetrating radar to peer underneath the ice sheet.

Greenland’s gigantic crater is located in the most northwestern point of the island, under ice almost 1,000 metres thick.

The crater has now been measured by experts and is roughly the same size as the city of Paris.

The pit is 19 miles wide and buried under a total of 930 meters of ice, too thick to dig through.

Scientists believe the huge crater is the result of a massive collision from outer space.

So far, scientists have been unable to progress through the ice to the crater to understand how old it could be.

However, they have been able to calculate the size of the giant meteorite and theorise it must have been at least 0.9 miles in width.

A meteorite this large would have been big enough to cause significant environmental damage to the surrounding area.

Glaciologist Kurt Kjær from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark led the research and he hopes to investigate further.

When asked whether the team will go on to investigate the age of the newly found crater, Mr Kjær seemed optimistic.

Talking to the BBC, he said: ”We will endeavour to do this; it would certainly be the best way to get the ‘dead fish on the table’ (acknowledge the issue), so to speak.”

So far, the analysis the research team has conducted on the area has yielded fascinating results.

The study revealed the object which slammed into the country was a “fractionated iron asteroid”.

The crater is already a record breaker and is a relatively intact sample compared to previous discoveries.

Researchers confirmed the object is the largest known of its size which “retains aspects of its original surface topographic expression”.

This means the crater is relatively unchanged since it was created, likely due to the ice sheet above.

The paper said: “This crater is potentially one of the 25 largest impact structures on Earth.”