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Octubre 18, 2005

Meteor Craters on Earth

Over the last few millions of years the Earth has had quite a few impacts from meteors, asteroids, and maybe even peices of comets. Scientists have confirmed 172 locations on the Earth determined to be "impact structures". In fact, the leading theory for the mass extinction of many animals, including the dinosaurs, 65.5 million years ago was an impact crater known as the "Chicxulub crater". These locations have been documented in a database available at the Earth Impact Database.

Thinklemon.com has taken the Impact Database and created Google Earth network links (he gets extra points for this) which not only shows the location of the 172 impacts, but shows a size indicator for the larger ones and provides links to Wikipedia articles and other information in the descriptions. He has organized the list by major continents and also includes a list of the top 25. Here is his announcement with his links, or you can download the entire collection now. This is a very nice collection, and since I have a degree in astronomy myself, I just had to write about this. Great job Caspar!

By the way, a good friend of mine has spent over 20 years as an astronomer helping to find near-Earth objects which may someday strike the Earth. He works at the Spacewatch Project at the University of Arizona. If anyone with lots of funding is looking to help us make plans to avoid a major future impact, Spacewatch would be a good project to fund.

Enviado por FrankTaylor at Octubre 18, 2005 08:45 AM

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    • Comentarios

    Thanks!

    But I must mention there's a size indicator for every 'crater' available. Some are so small you need to zoom in to make the 'impact icon' smaller than the indicator... (Double-click on the folder helps.)

    There is one flaw though. The smaller the crater the more off it is. The data I pulled this off isn't accurate enough. So this needs some tweaking. Besides this, I plan to make a 'humanly/humanoid witnessable collection' and 'the oldest' KML. but more on that later.
    Again, feedback is welcome.

    BTW: Do you have data on 'super-volcanoes'? Size & Lat./Lon.

    Enviado por: Caspar at Octubre 19, 2005 08:06 PM

    Hey! Landed here all by luck. Just to tell you that I live within the worlds oldest (if not largest) impact site and have done so since 1876.
    There is a lot of talk recently about the South African Govt granting miningrights to a certain company to do open exploration mining within, what we call, The Dome. That would be the begining of the end of Vredefortdome ....
    So, if there might be people to be asked, point your scopes on the Vredefortdome and help preventing destruction. (One small area has been proclaimed "World Heritage" but we feel that this was done to sooth the anger against possible destruction of the rest of the Dome)
    You can find my location @ S027.12.155 E027.35.477
    Happy landing!
    zac

    Enviado por: zac at Noviembre 17, 2006 06:17 AM

    on google earth there is a listing that Hudson Bay, Canada, might be a crater, had this been confirmed or rubbished?

    Enviado por: Jake at Febrero 18, 2007 09:36 AM

    I have found a crater not listed how should I get it listed "impact crater 3" lat=-22.6810815131, lon=133.531999688

    See what you think?

    Enviado por: Jake at Febrero 19, 2007 06:12 AM

    I have been looking at the Craters in Russia and the one's in Europe are labled as Asia. Id fix this but I dont know how.

    Enviado por: Peter at Marzo 20, 2007 10:29 AM

    Have you ever heard of the "Little Creek Structure" in LaSalle Parish, Louisiana? It is not a confirmed impact crater, but there is some compelling evidence.

    Here is a link to a website with some information on the subject. The author is a well respected Louisiana State geologist.

    http://www.searchanddiscovery.net/documents/echols/index.htm

    Enviado por: jkull at Abril 30, 2007 09:52 AM

    I have found a 130+ kilometer impact crater May 26,2007 at 27d N x 107dW in Western Mexico, and nearby smaller craters as well. Calling the big one Crater del Tortuga Jorge. My conjecture is that Chicxulub wasn't alone.

    Enviado por: Tortuga Jorge at Mayo 28, 2007 08:01 PM

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