Tenoumer
Coordinates: 22 ° 55 ′ 7 ″ N , 10 ° 24 ′ 21 ″ W.
Tenoumer is the name for an impact crater in Mauritania . The crater is located in the Sahara and forms an almost perfectly preserved circle. It has a diameter of 1.9 kilometers and forms a crater rim about 100 meters high.
From a geological point of view, the rock in which Tenoumer is embedded is very old; it is dated with 3,500 mya and comes from the Precambrian basement . However, the impact did not occur until about 21,400 ± 9,700 years ago in the Pleistocene .
For a long time, the crater was assumed to be an explosion crater that was created as a result of a phreatic eruption , i.e. of volcanic origin. When the formation of the crater was finally clarified, a number of multiple impact events were assumed. Tenoumer and two other craters, Temimichat-Ghallaman and Aouelloul , are precisely in a straight line. In 2003, scientists examined the craters for their respective ages by looking at their chemical composition. It could be proven that, contrary to original assumptions, the craters do not originate from the same impact event.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8536
- ↑ a b http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2003/pdf/1183.pdf
