Led by Curtin University geologists Chris Kirkland and Tim Johnson, a research team unearthed this primeval crater beneath rock layers in the East Pilbara Terrane of Western Australia. The oldest Archaean crater before this discovery went back only 2.2 billion years.

We have discovered the oldest meteorite impact crater on Earth, in the very heart of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The crater formed more than 3.5 billion years ago, making it the oldest known by more than a billion years.

It was a respectable tenure, but the world’s oldest known meteorite site is no longer western Australia’s 2.2 billion-year-old, 43-mile-wide Yarrabubba crater. Researchers at Curtin University and the Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA) say the new recordholder is located about 660 miles north in the country’s Pilbara region.

The discovery bolsters the theory that meteorite impacts played an important role in Earth's early geological history

A rocky stretch in Western Australia's Pilbara, near Earth's earliest-confirmed lifeforms, was hit by a meteorite about 3.5 billion years ago.

Scientists have found the oldest impact crater on Earth – and it changes our understanding of our planet and the origins of life.

Scientists published the discovery of a 3.5-billion-year-old meteorite impact crater, making it the oldest known by more than a billion years.

A Curtin University group has identified what may be Earth’s oldest meteorite strike in a remote part of Western Australia’s Pilbara region, near the North Pole Dome. Evidence in local rock indicates the collision happened around 3.