Science / Medicine : Meteor Caused Dents in Pampas

A meteor with the explosive force of 350 million tons of TNT struck a glancing blow to northern Argentina less than 10,000 years ago, skipping across the Earth’s surface like a stone across water, researchers said last week. The scientists blamed the meteor for a strange series of depressions, each about 2.5 miles long by half a mile wide, arranged along a 35-mile corridor in the otherwise flat Argentine pampas.

The depressions were first noticed by Ruben Lianza, then a captain with the Argentine air force, during a routine flight. Lianza and geologist Peter Schultz of Brown University reported last week in the journal Nature that studies of the craters confirmed that they were caused by a meteorite impact.

They estimated that the meteor was originally between 150 and 300 yards across, 30 times larger than the massive Tunguska meteor that hit Siberia in 1908. “It is conceivable that this event was witnessed by early inhabitants of South America,” they said.