The Massive Meteorite That Smashed Greenland: The Hiawatha Crater
Beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet lies the 31 km wide Hiawatha impact crater — one of Earth’s largest and most mysterious buried meteorite craters. Formed 58 million years ago by a massive 1.5–2 km wide iron asteroid, this Paleocene impact reshaped a forested Arctic landscape long before Greenland was covered in ice. In this video, we explore the size of the asteroid, the scale of the explosion, the formation of shocked quartz and impact melt rocks, and whether this ancient asteroid collision caused global climate effects. From microspherulitic melt grains to hydrothermal alteration, this deep-time geology story reveals how a colossal meteorite impact left a hidden scar beneath modern ice.











