Mayan Attractions

Would you jump?

Funny man afraid to jump in the water Funny man afraid to jump in the water

The Chicxulub crater is an impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico.[2] Its center is located near the town of Chicxulub, after which the crater is named.[3] The date of the Chicxulub impactor, which created it, coincides precisely with the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary(K–Pg boundary), around 66 million years ago.[4] The crater is more than 180 kilometers (110 miles) in diameter and 20 km (12 mi) in depth, well into the continental crust of the region of about 10–30 km depth. It makes the feature the third of the largest confirmed impact structures on Earth; the impacting bolide that formed the crater was at least 10 km (6 mi) in diameter.

The Chicxulub Crater lends support to the theory postulated by the late physicist Luis Alvarez and his son, geologist Walter Alvarez, that the extinction of numerous animal and plant groups, including non-avian dinosaurs, may have resulted from a bolide impact (the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event). Luis and Walter Alvarez, postulated that this enormous extinction event, which was roughly contemporaneous with the postulated date of formation for the Chicxulub crater, could have been caused by just such a large impact.

Water-filled sinkholes (solution-collapse features common in the limestone rocks of the region) called cenotes after the Maya word dzonot. A dramatic ring of cenotes is associated with the largest peripheral gravity-gradient feature. The origin of the cenote ring remains uncertain, although the link to the underlying buried crater seems clear.

A cenote (pronunciation: American Spanish: [ˈsenote], /sᵻˈnoʊti/ or/sɛˈnoʊteɪ/) is a natural pit, or sinkhole, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater underneath. Especially associated with the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, cenotes were sometimes used by the ancient Maya for sacrificial offerings.

"Caves and cenotes were both entrances to the underworld, the same thing, to the Maya," says archaeologist Holley Moyes of the University of California, Merced. Surveys of caves, and now the cenote shrine, point to "tempestuous times," when pilgrims felt the need to make more sacrifices to the water deity.