Jebel Waqf al-Suwwan
Coordinates: 31 ° 2 ′ 50 ″ N , 36 ° 48 ′ 18 ″ E
The Jabal Waqf as-Suwwan ( Arabic جبل وقف الصوان, DMG Ǧabal Waqf aṣ-Ṣuwwān ; also: Jabal Waqf as Suwwan and Jebel Waqf es Swwan ) is a round geological formation in Jordan , which is interpreted as a meteorite crater . The crater was discovered in 2005 by geologists Elias Salameh and Hani Khoury from the University of Jordan together with the German professor Werner Schneider and has a diameter of 5.5 km . The size of the meteorite that formed the crater on impact was estimated by Professor Salameh to be 100 m in diameter. The impact speed was assumed to be 40–50 km / s . The energy released has been equated to 5000 times that of the Hiroshima bomb . An impact of this magnitude would have raised the atmospheric temperature within a radius of several 10 km to more than 1,000 ° C and thus hurled millions of tons of rocks, dust, steam and smoke into the atmosphere, with areas such as today's Jordan, Iraq , Syria and Lebanon , Palestine and the northern part of Saudi Arabia would have been completely destroyed and burned. This in turn would have created an earth-encompassing cloud that would have resulted in darkness, rain for years and subsequent flooding.
The discovery caused a sensation in 2006 because the age of the crater was initially estimated to be less than 10,000 years. This led to the media speculating about an observation of the impact by humans, possible effects on early cultures and a connection to the history of the Flood . However, the crater is now dated to the Eocene ; H. to an age between 37 and 56 million years.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jebel Waqf as Suwwan in the Earth Impact Database ( memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Bad Astronomy Forum cited the Jordan News Agency, August 13, 2006
- ↑ Researchers in the footsteps of the Apocalypse , Der Spiegel, August 12, 2006
- ↑ Article on BBS.com , January 27, 2006
- ↑ Site surveys ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Museum for Natural History of the Humboldt University Berlin in May 2008
