Mjølnir is a meteorite crater on the floor of

Barents Sea The Barents Sea ( , also ; no, Barentshavet, ; russian: Баренцево море, Barentsevo More) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territo ...

off the coast of

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

. It is in

diameter In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints lie on the circle. It can also be defined as the longest chord of the circle. Both definitions are also valid fo ...

and the age is estimated to be 142.0 ± 2.6 million years ( Early Cretaceous). The

bolide A bolide is normally taken to mean an exceptionally bright meteor, but the term is subject to more than one definition, according to context. It may refer to any large crater-forming body, or to one that explodes in the atmosphere. It can be a ...

was an estimated wide.

Etymology

'' Mjølnir'' is the name of

Thor Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred groves and trees, strength, the protection of humankind, hallowing, an ...

's mythological hammer. Giving the crater this name was presumably an allusion to the power of the weapon, which is often described as breaking and smashing rocks.

Description

In 2006, a group of Swedish geologists discovered indications of a tsunami flooding the Swedish southern coast at about 145 million years ago. It is speculatedTsunami drabbade Skane
/ref> to be associated with the Mjølnir impact, together with similar indications discovered in 2000 in France.

References

External links

from the original on August 18, 2017. Impact craters of Norway Impact craters of the Arctic Cretaceous impact craters Cretaceous Norway Berriasian Stage Barents Sea {{Earth-crater-stub