Meteorite Impact Crater Found w/Google Earth

Gorgeous crater! There were many iron meteorites found near the crater. What an awesome discovery.

Eric

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,16796.msg109371.html#msg109371

Those are two I hadn't heard about. Thanks Sue. 


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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,16796.msg109554.html#msg109554

I did check out the impact database for quite awhile - impact craters are plentiful. I looked, most closely, at the Haviland one as I'm in Kansas. I was thinking large craters - not 'buffalo wallows' - but a crater is a crater 


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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,16796.msg109693.html#msg109693

I always did wonder what percentage of the meteorite is actually left in the crater and what percentage disintegrates / explodes or scatters away from the impact area ? Great posting Sue .

HH............Eugene

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,16796.msg109835.html#msg109835

		Quote:			Posted by Eugene52
	I always did wonder what percentage of the meteorite is actually left in the crater and what percentage disintegrates / explodes or scatters away from the impact area ? Great posting Sue . HH............Eugene

The percentage of disintegration of the impactor is very high. Not much of the material from an asteroid large enough to produce a crater survives the impact. The force is something like a nuclear bomb detonating, thereby vaporizing the material almost instantaneously. What doesn't get vaporized is blasted away from the epicenter in all directions and falls in "rays and rings" around the crater and rim. Meteor Crater in Arizona is a perfect example of a larger asteroid impactor that did not completely vaporize. Much of the material survived. The Lunar & Planetary Institute has a good article on impact crater formation here.

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This article is based on large impactors and suggest that most if not all a very large impactor will disintegrate.

A smaller asteroid will usually break up in the atmosphere and fall as multiple pieces, or even a single meteorite, never producing a crater, but an impact pit, or a strewnfield with multiple pieces of meteorite material "strewn" about in a distribution ellipse.

For an asteroid to form a crater without vaporizing or breaking up in the atmosphere, it must be the perfect size. A crater forming asteroid impactor, that leaves behind meteorite material must be a kind of Goldilocks rock, not too big to vaporize all together, but large enough to survive mostly intact and retain a cosmic velocity that's high enough to form a crater.

Eric

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,16796.msg109908.html#msg109908