This article is about the 10 largest impact craters that have been proven and measured in the world, all formed by meteorite impacts. Most of these craters can also be seen on satellite imagery in approximate size and morphology.
Friedford impact crater Vredefort Crater (Free State, South Africa) - 300 km.
Sudbury crater Sudbury Crater (Ontario, Canada) - 250 km.
Chicxulub crater Chicxulub Crater (Yucatan, Mexico) - 180 km.
Woodley Impact Crater Woodleigh Crater (WA, Australia) - 160 km.
Kara crater Kara Crater (Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia) - 120 km.
Manicouagan crater (Quebec, Canada) - 100 km.
Popigai crater Porigai Crater (Republic of Sakha, Russia) - 100 km.
Acraman crater Acraman Crater (South Australia, Australia) - 90 km.
Chesapeake Bay Crater Chesapeake Bay Crater (Virginia, USA) - 85 km.
Puchesh-** impact crater Puchezh-Katunki Crater (Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia) - 80 km.
10.The Puchesh-** crater is located in the heart of the European part of Russia, at 56°58 0 N, 43°43 0 E, less than 20 km from the left bank of the Gorky reservoir on the Volga. The impact occurred 1 year ago67±0.0.3 billion years ago, the impact crater formed was about 80 kilometers in diameter, but the entire crater body has been largely annihilated by Neogene and Quaternary sediments. However, due to the perennial erosion of the Volga River, a small amount of rocky outcrops formed by impact can be seen in some parts of the riverbank. The impact occurred in the middle of the Jurassic and was the only one of the six Phanerozoic impacts that had nothing to do with a particular extinction.
9.The Chesapeake Bay impact crater is located on the inner side of the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay between the mainland of the East Coast of the United States and the Delaware Peninsula, with the center of the impact at 37°17 0 north latitude and 76°1 0 west longitude, which happens to be Cape Charles, a small town in the southwest corner of the Delaware Peninsula in Virginia. The impact occurred 35.5 million years ago, caused the impact of the meteor velocity is very large, although in the impact of the formation of the high temperature completely vaporized, but still caused the crustal fracture 8 kilometers below the surface, and the formation of an inner and outer two rings of rock, of which the inner circle diameter of about 38 kilometers, the pit body is deeper, the center has the crustal material after the impact of the dome formed by **, the outer ring diameter is about 85 kilometers, the depth of the entire pit body is 13 km. However, some scientists believe that the impact crater directly generated by the impact is only about 40 kilometers in diameter, and the current diameter of 85 kilometers may be mostly caused by the collapse of the surrounding massif. The impact is also believed to have played a significant role in shaping the Chesapeake Bay, which may have triggered a tsunami as far as the Blue Ridge Mountains in present-day western Virginia, and the sediments created by the impact also shaped the shape of the Chesapeake Bay to some extent.
8.The Akraman crater is located in the southern part of South Australia, Australia, with its centre at latitude 32°1 0 N and longitude 135°27 0 E, and its center is now a circular saline flat, Lake Acraman, about 20 km in diameter. This crater was formed 5 years agoAn asteroid impact 800 million years ago formed a multi-layered ring of rock that is no longer visible on the surface, with a maximum diameter of about 85-90 kilometers, and this impact** is about 52 trillion tonnes of TNT equivalent, but some scientists believe that the maximum diameter of the rock ring formed by the impact is only 35-40 kilometers. However, the dating of this impact crater is not derived from the study of the material inside the crater, but from the extrusion of the surrounding sedimentary basin.
Satellite image of the Aklaman impact crater (the small glowing circle in the middle is Lake Akramand).
Approximate extent of the Akraman impact crater.
7.The Popigai crater is located in northern Siberia, Russia, about 200 kilometers north of the coast of the Laptev Sea, with the center of the impact at 71°39 0 N, 111°11 0 E, and a diameter of about 100 kilometers, which is about the same size as the Manigugen crater. This crater was formed about 35.7 million years ago, making it the second youngest of the top 10 impact craters in this article, and only slightly earlier than the Chesapeake Bay impact crater (about 35.5 million years ago). The astroscientists responsible for the impact have different opinions, some believe that it was an 8 km diameter chondrite, others believe that it was a 5 km diameter chondrite. The Popeget crater is relatively clear from the outside because it is relatively recent and unlike the Chesapeake Bay impact crater of the same period, which is in the sea. In Soviet times, this impact crater was already mined by prisoners of the Gulag as a large diamond deposit, but it was not until 1997 that scientists were allowed to study it in depth. It was not until September 2012 that Russian officials officially announced that the Popigai impact crater contained the world's largest diamond mine, with a radius of 13 that yearA large number of impact diamonds have been formed within a range of 6 kilometers, these diamonds are very large, much harder than ordinary diamonds, and their reserves reach hundreds of thousands of tons, which is more than ten times the known diamond reserves in the rest of the world, and can be used for 3,000 years in the world.
6.The Manigugan impact crater is located in the east-central part of Quebec, Canada, with the center of the impact at 51°23 0 north latitude and 68°42 0 west longitude, the diameter of the impact crater is about 100 kilometers, and there are multiple rock rings, but the outer rock rings are no longer clear on the surface. In its center, a large dome with a diameter of about 55 kilometers was uplifted, and on the periphery of the dome was a ring depression with a diameter of about 72 kilometers, which clearly showed the general shape of the impact crater, which is also the largest known visible impact crater in the world. The Manigugan crater was formed in 2An asteroid impact 15.5 billion years ago, this asteroid is about 5 kilometers in diameter and is one of the world's earliest known impact craters visible on the outside, and it is also known as the "Eye of Quebec" because it is a very striking landmark when viewed from the air. Some scientists believe that the impact may be related to the extinction of life in the late Triassic, but others point out that the impact was earlier and not directly related to the extinction event. In the 60s of the last century, Canada built a dam in the gap on the south side of the impact crater, and the reservoir was filled with the annular depression of the impact crater, and the dome in the center became a large island in the reservoir, René-Levasseur Island, with an area of 2,020 square kilometers, and the highest point of the dome (Mount Babbel). Babel) is 590 meters above the surface of the reservoir and has an area of 1,942 square kilometers, which makes the Manigugan crater even more spectacular from the air. In addition, some scientists believe that the Manigugan impact crater is one of the multiple impacts that occurred in the same period, the asteroid was torn apart by the gravitational force of the earth and hit the earth, forming five large impact craters, in addition to Manigugen, there is also the Oberon impact crater (Obolon) in Poltava Oblast, Ukraine'Crater (20 km diameter), Rochechouart Crater (21 km diameter) in Haute Vienna, France, Saint Martin Crater (40 km diameter) in Manitoba, Canada, and Red Wing crater in North Dakota, USA crater, 9 km in diameter), the five craters are indeed located in a similarly spaced strip, but their impact ages are not strongly supported by the current dating data.
5.The Kara crater is located near the southeastern coast of the Yugorsky Peninsula at the northeastern tip of the European part of Russia, at 69°6 0 N latitude and 64°9 0 E longitude, and a small part of it is in the Baydaratskaya Bay of the Kara Sea. It is about 120 kilometers in diameter, but the crater's ring is no longer visible from the surface. The crater was formed about 70.30 2.2 million years ago.
4.The Woodley crater is located at the westernmost point of the Australian continent, a small part of the west is located in Shark Bay, the center of the impact is about 26°3 0 south latitude and 114°40 0 east longitude, scientists have disputed its size, some people thought it was 120 kilometers, some people thought it was 60 kilometers, and the latest research believes that the maximum could be 160 kilometers. The impact crater was formed at approximately 364±0.In 0.8 billion years, the fire meteor that caused the impact (it is uncertain whether it was a comet or an asteroid) was about 6-12 kilometers in diameter, and was once thought to be only 5-6 kilometers. In the centre of the impact range is a small area of slightly raised heights, about 20 km in diameter, similar to the dome at the centre of the Friedevot crater. A gravity survey in 1997 identified it as an impact crater, and two years later the core was drilled to again prove geologically that it was an impact crater. The impact coincided with the Devonian Mass Extinction (the second mass extinction), so many scientists believe that the Woodley impact and other celestial impacts of the same period were one of the direct causes of the extinction event.
3.The Chicxulub crater is buried under the Yucatan Peninsula near the Mexican village of Chicxulub (meaning "Devil's Tail"), an ancient crater with a diameter of 170 kilometers. The impact occurred about 65 million years ago, when a comet or asteroid the size of a small city collided with Earth, producing the equivalent of 100 megatons of yellow explosives, causing devastating tsunami, ** and volcanic eruptions around the globe. It is widely believed that the extinction of the dinosaurs caused by the Chicxulub impact may also be due to a global outbreak or long-term environmental changes caused by the violent and widespread greenhouse effect.
2.The Sudbury crater is located at latitude 46°36 0 N, longitude 81°11 0 W, north of Lake Huron, and it was formed at 184.9 billion years ago, it is one of the oldest known impact craters on Earth, and it was formed by the impact of an asteroid with a diameter of 10-15 kilometers, which is almost the largest impact on Earth in history, at least since the Plutozoe. The crater is about 250 kilometers in diameter, and the ring is barely visible from the surface due to more than a billion years of crustal movement and landmark erosion. At the time of the impact, there was an orogeny, followed by two large-scale orogenies, and even a small-scale celestial impact, which occurred 37.2 million 1.2 million years ago and formed a diameter of 8A small impact crater of 4 km, which is currently flooded by Lake Wanapitei. A small basin called the Sudbury Basin is now visible in the middle of the Sudbury impact crater, which is 62 kilometres long from east to west and 30 kilometres wide from north to south. The basin is full of various gabbro, gabbro, granite porphyry, pseudobasalt, etc., which have been recrystallized after being melted by violent impact. Like most impact craters in the world, the Sudbury crater was thought to be a remnant of volcanic activity, and it wasn't until the discovery of the fracture cone and the various rocks mentioned above in the 70s that scientists determined that it was an impact crater.
1.The Friedford crater (also translated as Friedburg) was formed around 2023±0.0.4 billion years ago, the crater was caused by an asteroid with a diameter of about 5-10 kilometers, which may have been one of the largest extraterrestrial objects ever hit the Earth (at least in the Underworld), but it should be smaller than the meteor that formed the Sudbury crater (i.e., it is not clear whether it was an asteroid or a comet, etc.). It is the second oldest known impact crater on Earth in terms of formative age, after the Su**j Rvi crater in the Russian Republic of Karelia (about 16 kilometers in diameter and formed about 2.4 billion years ago). The diameter of the Friedford impact crater is about 300 kilometers, and the multi-layered rock ring formed by the formation of large impact craters are generally formed by the impact of large extraterrestrial bodies, but after more than 2 billion years of crustal movement and various surface erosion, the rock ring itself has been diffused and almost impossible to see from the outside. However, in the center of the impact crater, a dome with an outer ring diameter of 70 kilometers can still be seen, and around 1995, scientists determined that this large dome was the result of the reflection of the earth's crust after a celestial impact (like a drop of water on the surface of the water will bring up a small cone-shaped body of water), and in the center of the dome can also be seen in the rupture cone that can only form during a celestial impact or nuclear explosion, and until then it was generally believed that the dome was formed by volcanic activity. There are a number of smaller crater-like craters around the crater, all of which were formed around the same period and are presumed to have been triggered by volcanic activity caused by the Friedford impact, which is home to the world's largest deposits of gold and platinum metals. The remains of the existing impact craters, such as the dome, have been severely damaged due to large-scale mining and other production activities in the surrounding area, and it was registered as a World Natural Heritage Site in 2005 according to item 8 of the World Heritage Selection Criteria, which "represents the major stages of development in the history of the earth."