Meteorite craters as topographical features on the earth"s surface

Meteorite craters as topographical features on the earth"s surface by Spencer, Leonard James Download PDF EPUB FB2

METEORITE CRATERS AS TOPOGRAPHICAL FEATURES are not merely dents or holes made just by the projectile force of the meteorite, as hitherto supposed. They appear rather to be explosion craters due to the sudden vaporization of part of the material, both of the meteorite and of the Earth, in the intense heat developed by the impact.

During its five-billion-year history, Earth has been hit countless times by asteroids and meteorites. Over crater-producing events have been identified, and this book describes all sites worldwide at which evidence of the impacts can be by: 10 rows  Confirmed impact craters listed by size and age.

These features were caused by the. A nontechnical account is given of the development of scientific understanding of meteorite craters on earth. The geology of the craters is discussed in context. Among the topics discussed are: curious landforms of the Colorado Plateau; Meteor Crater in Arizona; the geology of explosive impact, cryptovolcanic structures, coesite and shatter cones, the Sudbury geological puzzle, and impact Author: Mark, Kathleen.

We cannot directly measure the rate at which craters are being formed on Earth and the Moon, since the average interval between large crater-forming impacts is longer than the entire span of human history. Our best-known example of such a large crater, Meteor Crater in Arizona (Figure ), is ab years old.

However, the cratering. The other reason is that Earth's surface is continually active and erases the marks of craters over time. The picture is the Barringer Meteorite Crater found in Arizona. It was probably formed ab years ago when an iron meteorite struck the Earth's surface.

Many other large craters are found in Australia, Canada and Africa. There are many natural processes other than impacts that can create circular features and depressions on the surface of the Earth. Examples include glaciation, volcanism, sinkholes, atolls, salt domes, intrusions, and hydrothermal explosions (to name just a few).

Prehistoric mines and quarries are also sometimes mistaken for impact craters. Meteorites that have fallen recently have a black, glassy or ashy crust on their surface. When a meteorite falls through the Earth's atmosphere a very thin layer on the outer surface melts.

This thin crust is called a fusion crust. It is often black and looks like an eggshell coating the rock. phere and strike Earth’s surface, but the only visible results of such collisions were a collection of meteorites to study and display in museums, together with a few small and geologically short-lived meteorite craters, usually located in out-of-the-way desert areas (Fig.

Almost no one be-File Size: 2MB. Meteor Crater is one such study site in the Colorado Plateau, 73 km east of Flagstaff, Arizona. After the meteorite hit the surface of the Arizona desert thousands of years ago, some of the rocks were pushed up along the edge to form a rim around the crater.

Meteorite crater - Meteorite crater - Variations in craters across the solar system: Although impact craters on all the solid bodies of the solar system are grossly similar, their appearances from body to body can vary dramatically. The most-notable differences are a result of variations among the bodies in surface gravity and crustal properties.

The craters are what make our moon look like Swiss cheese. Each round hole is the place where a meteorite impacted, or hit, the surface of the moon, so craters are often called impact craters. Often, the meteorite that creates a crater explodes on impact, so the crater. Meteor Crater in central Arizona was the first impact crater to be studied and it remains one of the best places to study still today.

It is not a large crater but it is the best preserved. It is not a large crater but it is the best preserved. We are used to the idea that, when a meteoroid strikes a planetary surface, ejecta flies in all directions and the result is a crater structure such as Meteor Crater in Arizona or the countless craters that punctuate the surface of the Moon.

However, the result is very different when the “target” is not a solid surface but rather a ring composed of countless particles that are constantly. Where there are craters on Venus, they are usually bunched together indicating that a large meteor broke up as it traveled through the atmosphere and headed for Venus’s surface.

The surface of Venus in geological terms is relatively young, dating about to million years old. Roughly 90% of the surface appears to be solidified basalt lava. Meteorite crater formation is arguably the most important geologic process in the solar system, as meteorite craters cover most solid-surface bodies, Earth being a notable exception.

Meteorite craters can be found not only on rocky surfaces like that of the Moon but also on the surfaces of comets and ice-covered moons of the outer planets.

After erosion, infilling, and burial, these impact craters can become significant hydrocarbon reservoirs and even have their own source rock. Impact features on Earth’s surface have traditionally been identified by their topographic character - circular hills - like a large bowl with an upturned rim and sometimes uplifted centre.

Meteor Crater is a m deep, km diameter bowl-shaped impact crater in Northern Arizona, and has long been a terrestrial analog site for planetary exploration. During the ’s, Eugene Shoemaker trained NASA astronauts at the crater to prepare for the Apollo missions to the Moon.

The Meteor Crater Sample Collection consists of geologic samples from the Meteor Crater ejecta blanket. Australia’s best meteorite craters. Thirteen other structures have been recognised, either as surface features or by geophysics. For these, there is little or no evidence other than their distinct circular shape to suggest they were formed from an impact.

This is an edited extract from the book Australia’s Meteorite Craters by Alex. There are plenty, if you know where to look. However unlike the Moon here on Earth we have an atmosphere, rain, seas, even plate tectonics. All these will weather and erode crater structures, but many still survive.

Here’s a few 1. The Barringer C. At least 40 terrestrial craters exhibit features believed to be produced only by intensive explosive impact of a large meteoroid (e.g., as in the event at Tunguska in Siberia) or perhaps even a comet nucleus.

Another features on Earth may be of impact origin. One expert classed of them as definite impact craters.Sites of Impact - Meteorite craters around the world. It's a large coffee-table sized book (33 by 26 cm) with black-&-white photographs of the major impact craters on Earth: Barringer crater, Beaverhead, Gosses Bluff, Henbury, Roter Kamm, Tswaing, Upheaval dome, Wolfe Creek, etc Cited by: 1.Only a few impact craters in the US can be seen from the ground.

Some look like craters and others look like mountains. Below is a list of those you can visit. Click on the link to see a topographic map and a satellite image of the crater. Barringer Meteor Crater, Arizona Odessa Meteor Crater, Texas Sierra Madera Mountain (center of a crater.