Chicxulub Crater research drill bit. Close-up of a researcher holding a diamond-tipped drill bit during work in the Gulf of Mexico in April and May 2016, drilling rock cores from the Chicxulub Crater. This was a collaboration between the British Geological Survey, the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD) and the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP). Samples from 1300 metres below the sea floor 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.