Silverpit Crater

Silverpit crater is a buried sub-sea structure under the North Sea off the coast of the United Kingdom. The crater-like form, named after the Silver Pit — a nearby sea-floor valley recognized by generations of fishermen — was discovered during the routine analysis of seismic data collected during exploration for gas in the Southern North Sea Sedimentary Basin. Its meteor impact origin was first proposed and widely reported in 2002. If correct, it would be the first impact crater identified in or near the United Kingdom. Its age was proposed to lie somewhere in a 29-million year interval between 74 – 45 million years (Late Cretaceous – Eocene).

However, the interpretation is controversial and other authors have disputed its extraterrestrial origin. An alternative origin has been proposed in which the feature was created by withdrawal of rock support by salt mobility.