Hickman crater

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The Hickman Crater is an impact crater , located 35 kilometers north of Newman and about 1000 kilometers north of Perth in the ophthalmia Range in the Pilbara region of Western Australia is located. He was discovered while looking at Google Earth .

discovery

The geologist Arthur Hickmann, who works at the Geological Survey of Western Australia , discovered the crater in July 2007 while looking at Google Earth. He reported his discovery to geologist Andrew Gliksen and asked for a second opinion. He undertook a field inspection in August and confirmed that it was a meteor impact and gave him the name of the discoverer. In May 2008, Hickman undertook further research that further solidified the impact theory.

description

The crater has a diameter of 260 meters and rises 30 meters above the surrounding area. The inner rim of the crater drops off steeply, the outer one is flatter. After the impact, a river was dammed on the southern edge of the rim. Rock was thrown up to 300 meters outside the ring. The debris consists of rhyolite , chert and ribbon ore , some of which are more than 2 meters long. The crater impacted layers of Woongarra rhyolite and the Booleega Iron Formation , including layers of alluvial soil .

The surface of the stone blocks show typical traces of the meteorite impact, such as radiation structures , armor and hydrothermal goethite - quartz veins.

It is believed that it was an iron meteorite about 10 meters in diameter that hit at a speed of 5 kilometers per second. The impact had an energy of 200,000 to 300,000 tons of exploding TNT .

The event took place in the Pleistocene .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ theage.com.au : Stephen Hutcheon: Sudden impact: Google unearths rare meteorite crater , March 25, 2008, accessed May 25, 2012
  2. ↑ a b c dmp.wa.gov.au : Hickman Crater , accessed May 25, 2012
  3. ↑ Arthur Hickman, Andrew Glikson, John Vickers: A newly discovered meteorite impact crater, Ophthalmia Range, Western Australia :, accessed May 25, 2012
  4. ↑ cosmosmagazine.com ( Memento of the original from December 16, 2009 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. Brooke Borel: Aussie finds meteorite crater on Google Earth , accessed May 25, 2012  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cosmosmagazine.com

Coordinates: 23 ° 2 ′ 13.4 ″  S , 119 ° 40 ′ 59.3 ″  E