A 160-metre-wide asteroid or comet struck what is now the southern North Sea, about 80 miles off the coast of Yorkshire, creating Silverpit crater — a 3 km-wide impact crater surrounded by a 20 km zone of concentric faults. The resulting tsunami, exceeding 100 metres in height, would have swamped the coastal regions bordering the North Sea: the Low Countries (the Netherlands and Belgium), northern France, Denmark, Norway, and much of eastern England and Scotland.
If such an impact were to occur today, it would devastate major population centres and send massive tidal waves surging up major European rivers such as the Rhine and Thames. The death toll would be in the tens of millions, and the resulting economic and infrastructural collapse would almost certainly tip Europe and the UK into terminal decline.
Just 23 million years earlier, another impact event at Chicxulub crater, on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, had exterminated 75 % of all species, including all but the avian dinosaurs. This catastrophe plunged the world into a prolonged global winter, radically reshaping the trajectory of life on Earth and enabling mammals and birds to supplant reptiles as the dominant vertebrate groups.
And all this, on a planet in a universe which creationists insist — in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary — was created perfect for human life by a benevolent god who wanted the best possible world for his “special creation”. That comforting narrative seems curiously blind to the frequent natural disasters inherent to a tectonically active planet orbiting in a cosmic shooting gallery of drifting rocks and icy bodies.
The origins of the Silverpit Crater have been debated since its discovery in 2002. Early hypotheses suggested that movement of subsurface salt or volcanic collapse of the seabed might explain its structure. Now, a research team led by Dr Uisdean Nicholson, a sedimentologist at Heriot-Watt University, together with Dr Tom Dunkley Jones of University of Birmingham, believe they have finally settled the debate: the crater was formed by the impact of an extraterrestrial body.
Major Population Centres in Low-Lying Coastal and Estuarine Zones of the Southern North Sea.The research findings are summarised in a Heriot-Watt University news item.
The North SeaGoogle Maps
Country Urban/Metropolitan Area Key Estuary
/CoastlineApprox. Population (millions)* Notes on Exposure Potential UK London metropolitan area Thames Estuary 9.8–10.0 Extensive low-lying floodplain; major infrastructure; tidal surge vulnerability. UK Thames Gateway towns (Southend, Tilbury, Sheerness, etc.) Thames Estuary ~0.3–0.5 High exposure near sea level. UK Norwich + Great Yarmouth & Lowestoft East Anglian coast ~0.25 Low coastal elevations, limited defences outside main towns. UK Kingston upon Hull Humber Estuary ~0.3–0.4 Estuarine funneling effect; city lies largely below 10 m. UK Newcastle–Gateshead (Tyneside) Tyne Estuary ~0.8–0.9 Harbour exposure, not extensive inland plains. UK Edinburgh Firth of Forth ~0.55 Localised low-lying exposure. NL Amsterdam metropolitan region Dutch coastal plain ~2.5 Much of the region at or below sea level; major flood. NL Rotterdam–The Hague–Dordrecht Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta ~2.7 One of Europe’s most exposed yet heavily protected areas. BE Antwerp Scheldt Estuary ~1.0 Major river port; delta exposure BE Ghent–Bruges–Ostend coastal belt North Sea coast ~0.6–0.8 Coastal lowlands. DE Hamburg Elbe Estuary ~1.8 Wide, low estuary with extensive urban development. DE Bremen/Bremerhaven Weser Estuary ~0.55 Industrial ports, low-lying floodplain. DK Esbjerg Danish west coast ~0.1–0.2 Coastal exposure. NO Stavanger/Sandnes South-west Norway ~0.25 Steep relief limits inland inundation, but harbours exposed. * Population figures are rounded contemporary metro or city-region estimates for contextual exposure, not direct inundation counts.
A modern tsunami on the scale of the Silverpit event would strike some of the most densely populated and economically critical regions in Europe. Even moderate inland penetration along estuaries could affect tens of millions of people and key infrastructure hubs — particularly in the Thames, Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt, Elbe, and Weser basins.
Scientists find proof that an asteroid hit the North Sea over 43 million years ago
A decades-long scientific debate over the origins of the Silverpit Crater in the southern North Sea has been resolved.
New evidence confirms that it was caused by an asteroid or comet impact around 43-46 million years ago.
A team led by Dr Uisdean Nicholson from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), used seismic imaging, microscopic analysis of rock cuttings and numerical models to provide the strongest evidence yet that Silverpit is one of Earth’s rare impact craters.
Their findings are published in Nature Communications.
New data ends longstanding controversy
The Silverpit Crater sits 700 metres below the seabed in the North Sea, around 80 miles off the coast of Yorkshire.
Since its discovery in 2002, the three-kilometre-wide crater, which is surrounded by a 20 km-wide zone of circular faults, has been at the centre of a heated debate among geologists.
Initial studies suggested it was an impact crater. The scientists who found it pointed to its central peak, circular shape and concentric faults, characteristics often associated with hypervelocity impacts.
However, alternative theories argued that the crater structure was caused by salt moving deep below the crater floor or the collapse of the seabed because of volcanic activity.
In 2009, geologists put the crater’s formation to a vote, as reported in that year’s December issue of Geoscientist magazine - a majority voted against the impact crater hypothesis.
New evidence has proved them wrong.
A 160-m wide asteroid hit the North Sea
The Heriot-Watt-led team used newly available seismic imaging data and evidence from below the seabed to prove the impact theory.
New seismic imaging has given us an unprecedented look at the crater. Samples from an oil well in the area also revealed rare ‘shocked’ quartz and feldspar crystals at the same depth as the crater floor. We were exceptionally lucky to find these - a real ‘needle-in-a-haystack’ effort. These prove the impact crater hypothesis beyond doubt, because they have a fabric that can only be created by extreme shock pressures.
Dr Uisdean Nicholson, lead author
School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society
Heriot-Watt University
Edinburgh, UK.
100-metre high tsunami
Our evidence shows that a 160-metre-wide asteroid hit the seabed at a low angle from the west. Within minutes, it created a 1.5-kilometre high curtain of rock and water that then collapsed into the sea, creating a tsunami over 100 metres high.
Dr Uisdean Nicholson.
Finding ‘the silver bullet’
Professor Gareth Collins from Imperial College London was at the Silverpit Crater debate in 2009 and also provided the numerical models for the new study.
I always thought that the impact hypothesis was the simplest explanation and most consistent with the observations. It is very rewarding to have finally found the silver bullet. We can now get on with the exciting job of using the amazing new data to learn more about how impacts shape planets below the surface, which is really hard to do on other planets.
Professor Gareth Collins, co-author.
Department of Earth Science & Engineering
Imperial College London
London, UK.
Rare and exceptionally-preserved
Silverpit is a rare and exceptionally preserved hypervelocity impact crater. These are rare because the Earth is such a dynamic planet - plate tectonics and erosion destroy almost all traces of most of these events. Around 200 confirmed impact craters exist on land, and only about 33 have been identified beneath the ocean. We can use these findings to understand how asteroid impacts shaped our planet throughout history, as well as predict what could happen should we have an asteroid collision in future.
Dr Uisdean Nicholson.
The confirmation of Silverpit as an impact crater places it alongside structures such as the Chicxulub Crater in Mexico – linked to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs – and the Nadir Crater off West Africa, which was recently confirmed as an impact site.
Publication:
AbstractEvents such as the Silverpit impact are stark reminders that life on Earth exists on a dynamic, unstable, and often unforgiving planet. Far from being a divinely engineered idyll, our world is shaped by tectonic convulsions, asteroid impacts, volcanic cataclysms, and abrupt climatic shifts. These are not rare exceptions but recurring features of Earth’s deep history — the same natural processes that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs, drowned coastlines, and reshaped continents again and again.
An impact origin for Silverpit Crater, on the UK continental shelf, has been contested over the last two decades, with a lack of definitive evidence – traditionally petrographic evidence of shock metamorphism – to resolve the debate. Here we present 3D seismic, petrographic and biostratigraphic data, and numerical impact simulations to test the impact hypothesis. The seismic data provide exceptional imaging of the entire structure, confirming the presence of a central uplift, annular moat, damage zone and numerous secondary craters on the contemporaneous seabed. The distribution of normal and reverse faults in the brim, and curved radial faults around the central uplift suggest a low-angle impact from the west. The pitted, flat-topped central uplift at the top chalk horizon may indicate significant devolatilization of chalk immediately following impact. Biostratigraphic data confirm that this event occurred during the middle Eocene, between 43-46 million years ago. Petrographic analysis from the reworked ejecta sequence in the nearby 43/25-1 well reveals two grains with shock lamellae, indicating shock pressures of ~10-13 GPa, consistent with results from our numerical models. This combination of data and modelling provide compelling evidence that Silverpit Crater is an exceptionally preserved hypervelocity impact structure.
Introduction
Hypervelocity impacts of asteroids and comets with Earth represent a significant hazard and are a ubiquitous process in the Solar System. Impactors larger than ~100 m in diameter are capable of penetrating the atmosphere and striking Earth’s surface to form craters1. Such events are rare, with none observed in recorded history; therefore, their consequences can only be inferred from impact craters and ejecta deposits preserved in the geological record. Impact structures are relatively rare on Earth, with only ~200 confirmed impact craters in the terrestrial record2,3. Marine-impact craters are even more rarely preserved, despite over 70% of the Earth’s surface being covered with water, with only ~33 confirmed or probable marine-impact craters identified4.
Most terrestrial impact structures are poorly preserved as those exposed at the Earth’s surface are modified by weathering, erosion and tectonic deformation. Buried craters are often better preserved, but these are difficult to investigate without high-resolution seismic imaging and/or drill cores. The only impact crater on Earth that is fully imaged with 3D seismic is the ~9 km diameter Nadir Crater offshore West Africa5,6. Other craters identified on 2D seismic have either been deformed by later tectonic processes (e.g. Mjolnir7) or are too large to be imaged by 3D seismic datasets (e.g. Chesapeake8, Chicxulub9). This limits our understanding of the near-surface processes that occur during and shortly after an impact event, which likely vary depending on the environment of impact and the physical properties of the target stratigraphy.
Traditionally, proposed craters are only confirmed as hypervelocity impact structures on the basis of shocked mineral phases—principally quartz or feldspar—and associated evidence from physical samples10,11. Shocked minerals only form at extreme transient shock pressures that cannot be replicated by other terrestrial processes, even deep within the lithosphere. The Nadir Crater is the only example where seismic data alone has been used to show ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ an impact origin6, showing that there are exceptional cases in which high-quality geophysical imaging allows near-diagnostic structural characteristics to be identified and other epigenetic mechanisms to be conclusively ruled out6.
The Silverpit Crater is situated in the Silverpit Basin in the southern North Sea, UK (Fig. 1). The basin has a complex tectonic history, having experienced multiple periods of rifting and uplift throughout the late Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic12,13. At the Silverpit Crater location, Triassic and Jurassic evaporites, carbonates and clastic sedimentary rocks overlie a mobile Zechstein evaporite sequence (Fig. 2). The Jurassic and Triassic sediments are partially eroded across the area by the Base Cretaceous Unconformity (BCU), which is overlain by Cretaceous limestones and chalk, and Paleogene marine mudstones. The Triassic to Paleogene section has been folded into a series of gentle 10–100 km scale, NW-SE trending anticlines and synclines, which have been subsequently eroded and then buried during the Quaternary14.
The crater was identified from 3D seismic data in 2002, and proposed as a new candidate hypervelocity impact structure15. Although the seismic data available at the time only covered part of the structure, the crater was described as a 20-km-diameter, multi-ringed structure with characteristics consistent with a complex impact crater, including a circular planform morphology, concentric faults, and a proposed stratigraphic uplift below the crater floor. The crater floor was inferred to be at or just above the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary, with an age of approximately 65-60 Ma, based on extensive deformation of the Upper Cretaceous chalk below the crater floor. More seismic data were acquired and interpreted in the following years, further constraining the geometry of the potential impact structure16. Although the structure was still only partially imaged, these data allowed the crater rim to be redefined as a much smaller ~8 km in diameter, based on the most distant inward-facing extensional fault defining a fault terrace at the top of the Cretaceous. According to this model, concentric extensional faults beyond the rim were interpreted to have formed over longer timescales (thousands of years) due to viscous relaxation of the sediments near the seabed into the crater cavity. The stratigraphic position of the crater floor was later interpreted to be shallower than previously thought, based on the presence of faults (albeit poorly imaged because of seismic multiples) cutting across the lower Paleogene interval. This led to the proposition of a much younger, Eocene, impact age17. This age was interpreted based on the correlation of seismic with unpublished biostratigraphic data from industry well 43/25-1, which penetrates the stratigraphy around 3 km to the NW of the centre of the proposed rim.Fig. 1: Location map showing the Silverpit Crater and its associated damage zone.
Also shown are the locations of key wells (43/25-1 and 43/24-3), the outlines of 3D seismic datasets including the Greater NEP 3D (red outline) and the PGS SNS 3D MegaMerge volumes (shaded) and the locations of regional cross-sections presented in this study (Fig. 2). The inset map shows the location of the main map in the small red square. Bathymetry is from GEBCO67.
Fig. 2: Regional seismic profiles across Silverpit Crater, showing crater morphology and deformation patterns.
a is oriented NNW-SSW, intersecting the 43/25-1 well, and b is oriented WNW-ESE, approximately parallel to the inferred impact trajectory for the crater (see Fig. 1 for line locations). Note that conjugate faults are predominantly normal (black) uprange, and predominantly reverse faults (red) downrange, assuming an impact from the west. The 3.2 km diameter crater at mid-Eocene level is offset by around 0.3 km downrange relative to the central uplift at BCU level. See Supplementary Fig. S1 for an uninterpreted version of these lines and S2 and S3 for details about the seismic-to-well tie in (a). The white dashed line in (b) shows the extent of the more intense damage zone in the chalk, with multiple smaller faults at or below seismic resolution.
An impact origin for the crater has been disputed, with crater formation instead being explained by salt withdrawal in the deep subsurface18, or by hydrothermal venting associated with Paleogene dykes that are present across the wider Silverpit Basin19. Some of the structural evidence for an impact origin is also disputed, with the stratigraphic uplift inferred to be a seismic artefact at the boundary of several seismic surveys, where full-fold seismic coverage was absent18. These competing hypotheses were widely reported in the media, resulting in a public debate at the Geological Society of London in 2009, where those present voted “overwhelmingly” for a non-impact origin (https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Geoscientist/Archive/December-2009/Silverpit-not-crater). Even though this was a public vote rather than a decision arrived at by an expert panel of impact specialists, this debate’s outcome, combined with a lack of new evidence, appears to have led many researchers to consider the question closed, with limited further research on subsurface data or modelling in the decade and a half since.
Here, we reassess the impact hypothesis for Silverpit Crater with geophysical data, analysis of well cuttings, and numerical modelling. We use high-resolution, pre-stack depth migrated (PSDM) 3D seismic data acquired by Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP) that offers improved imaging of the crater, and full seismic coverage of the central uplift. Samples from drill cuttings (rock fragments transported back to the surface in drilling mud) from well 43/25-1 are analysed to constrain the age of the crater biostratigraphically, and to look for evidence of shock metamorphism in the proposed proximal ejecta deposits, or in the subsurface at the time of impact. Finally, we present numerical impact simulation results to estimate the impact energy required to produce the observed crater morphology in the submarine, sedimentary target, and particularly to test models of crater modification based on observational evidence. In combination, these data show strong evidence for a hypervelocity impact origin for this structure.
Nicholson, U., Jonge-Anderson, I.d., Gillespie, A. et al.
Multiple lines of evidence for a hypervelocity impact origin for the Silverpit Crater.
Nat Commun 16(8312) (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-63985-z
Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by Springer Nature Lts. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)
And yet, creationists cling to the comforting fiction of a benevolent designer who built a perfect world for their benefit, seemingly blind to the obvious: that this supposed “perfect” home can be catastrophically altered by the chance arrival of a lump of rock a few hundred metres across. In this universe, we are not shielded by divine favour, nor do the laws of physics bend to accommodate human notions of specialness.
The reality is starker and more humbling. We inhabit a restless, dangerous world on a cosmic shooting range, and the fact that life has persisted at all is a testament not to supernatural planning but to evolutionary resilience and chance survival. To imagine otherwise is to mistake a temporary lull between disasters for divine design.
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