Oklahoma’s Ames crater may be 100 million years younger than thought

A meteor impact buried beneath the small town of Ames, Oklahoma, has been given a dramatically different age. For years, the Ames impact structure was linked to a major meteor bombardment around 467 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. But new research from the University of Texas at Austin has dated zircon crystals from impact-melt rock to about 370 million years ago, shifting the event forward by nearly 100 million years. The study, published in Meteoritics & Planetary Science, suggests the impact may date to the Late Devonian, close to the timing of a major marine extinction event.A crater hidden beneath OklahomaThe Ames impact structure is not a crater visible at the surface today. It lies beneath layers of sedimentary rock near Ames, Oklahoma, and stretches several miles underground. The structure is also significant for Oklahoma's oil and gas industry, as the area has been an important producer.