Chicxulub Crater impact sample. Specimen of impact melt rock with clasts of quartz and feldspar. This sample is from a core drilled from the Chicxulub Crater in the Gulf of Mexico. The research was a collaboration between the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD) and the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP). Samples were obtained from the 'peak ring', a rebound feature that formed around the impact point. The 180-kilometre-wide Chicxulub Crater off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula formed 66 million years ago in an asteroid impact that triggered a mass extinction of life that included the dinosaurs. Photographed in May 2016.