Britain's secret rocky past: Scientists confirm asteroid smashed into Yorkshire coast 43 million years ago

Scientists have confirmed that a massive asteroid struck the seabed off the Yorkshire coast about 43 million years ago, creating the Silverpit Crater roughly 80 miles offshore. The feature was first identified in 2002, but its origin remained the subject of debate for years as researchers weighed an asteroid or comet impact against volcanic or other geological processes. A team from Heriot-Watt University has now presented converging lines of evidence that support an impact origin, marking a milestone in the study of Britain’s deep-time geology.

Lead author Dr. Uisedan Nicholson described the scenario as a low-angle collision from the west that involved a 160-meter-wide body. In moments, the seabed was reshaped by a 1.5-kilometer-high curtain of rock and water that collapsed back into the sea, generating a tsunami that reached heights well over 100 meters. The researchers relied on recent seismic imaging data and samples from an oil well in the area. The latter revealed rare shocked quartz and feldspar crystals at the depth corresponding to the crater floor, minerals formed only under extreme shock pressures and considered definitive evidence of an impact event.

The formal confirmation places Silverpit among a small group of preserved hypervelocity impact craters. Earth’s dynamic geology means most such traces are erased by plate tectonics and erosion, but Silverpit remains unusually well preserved beneath the North Sea. The team notes that while there are about 200 confirmed impact craters on land, only roughly 33 have been identified beneath the oceans, underscoring how rare underwater records are. The discovery provides a rare, well-preserved example that can be studied with modern techniques to illuminate how such events unfold and their regional consequences.

Beyond the local story, the York­shire crater sits in a broader narrative of planetary science. The Chicxulub crater at the tip of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, linked to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs around 66 million years ago, is the best-known example of a catastrophic, planet-changing impact. Silverpit offers scientists a valuable contrast: a coastal-to-ocean impact that can be analyzed with contemporary seismic imaging and core sampling to reconstruct the sequence of events, the energy involved, and the ensuing geological and environmental changes. While Chicxulub represents a global catastrophe, Silverpit demonstrates how individual impact events can shape a regional landscape and its sedimentary record over tens of millions of years.

Researchers emphasize that the new evidence does not imply any imminent threat. Instead, it adds a crucial data point to the historical record of asteroid encounters with Earth and helps refine models used to simulate future events. As planetary defense initiatives progress, well-documented cases like Silverpit help calibrate simulations, test the sensitivity of tsunami and crater-formation models, and improve risk assessments for near-Earth object encounters. The study also highlights the value of integrating seismic imaging with deep oil-well cores to reveal hidden chapters in Earth’s history and to improve our understanding of how extraterrestrial bodies interact with our planet over geologic timescales.