Adriana Ocampo has led six research expeditions to study what geological formation that is more than 180 km in diameter and 20 km in depth
Chicxulub crater The Chicxulub crater ( ; ] ) is an impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Its center is located near the town of Chicxulub, after which the crater is named. It was formed by a large asteroid or comet about 10 to 15 kilometres (6 to 9 miles) in diameter, the Chicxulub impactor, striking the Earth. The date of the impact coincides precisely with the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (K–Pg boundary), slightly less than 66 million years ago, and a widely accepted theory is that worldwide climate disruption from the event was the cause of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, a mass extinction in which 75% of plant and animal species on Earth suddenly became extinct, including all non-avian dinosaurs. The crater is more than 180 km in diameter and 20 km 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.
Large igneous province In geology, a large igneous province (LIP) is an extremely large accumulation of igneous rocks, including plutonic rocks (intrusive) or volcanic rock formations (extrusive), arising when hot magma extrudes from inside the Earth and flows out. The source of many or all LIPs is variously attributed to mantle plumes or to processes associated with plate tectonics. Types of LIPs can include "large volcanic provinces" (LVP), created through flood basalt, and "large plutonic provinces" (LPP). Rampino and Stothers (1988) cite eleven distinct flood-basalt episodes - occurring in the past 250 million years - which created volcanic provinces and plateaus and coincided with mass extinctions. However, more flood basalts have been recognized, such as the large Ontong Java Plateau, and the medium-sized Chilcotin Group, though the latter may be linked to the Columbia River Basalt Group. Formation depends on a range of factors, such as continental configuration, latitude, volume, rate, duration of eruption, style and setting (continental vs. oceanic), the pre-existing climate state, and the biota resilience to change.