This list includes all 27 confirmed impact structures in Australia as listed in the Earth Impact Database. [1]
This list includes all 27 confirmed impact structures in Australia as listed in the Earth Impact Database. [1]
Cenozoic Mesozoic Paleozoic Precambrian The following structures are officially considered "unconfirmed" because they are not listed in the Earth Impact Database. Due to stringent requirements regarding evidence and peer-reviewed publication, newly discovered craters or those with difficulty collecting evidence generally are known for some time before becoming listed. However, entries on the unconfirmed list could still have an impact origin disproven.
| Name | State | Diameter (km) | Age | Coordinates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bedout [3] [4] | Indian Ocean, Western Australia | 200 | 250 million | 18°S119°E / 18°S 119°E |
| Darwin Crater [5] | Tasmania | 1.2 | 800 thousand | 42°19′S145°40′E / 42.317°S 145.667°E |
| Deniliquin multiple-ring feature [6] | Southeast Australia | 520 | 445-444 million, Hirnantian mass extinction event [7] | 35°32′0″S144°58′0″E / 35.53333°S 144.96667°E |
| Diamantina River ring feature [8] [9] | Upper Diamantina River, Queensland | 130 | 300 million | 22°09′S141°54′E / 22.15°S 141.9°E |
| East Warburton Basin [10] | South Australia | 200 [11] | about 300-360 million | 27°0′S140°5′E / 27.000°S 140.083°E |
| West Warburton Basin [12] | South Australia | 200 [11] | about 300-360 million | |
| Gnargoo [13] | Carnarvon Basin, Western Australia | 75 | <300 | 24°48′24″S115°13′29″E / 24.80667°S 115.22472°E |
An impact event is a collision between astronomical objects causing measurable effects. Impact events have been found to regularly occur in planetary systems, though the most frequent involve asteroids, comets or meteoroids and have minimal effect. When large objects impact terrestrial planets such as the Earth, there can be significant physical and biospheric consequences, as the impacting body is usually traveling at several kilometres a second, though atmospheres mitigate many surface impacts through atmospheric entry. Impact craters and structures are dominant landforms on many of the Solar System's solid objects and present the strongest empirical evidence for their frequency and scale.
Bedout, or more specifically the Bedout High, is a geological and geophysical feature centered about 250 km off the northwestern coast of Australia in the Canning and overlying Roebuck basins. Although not obvious from sea floor topography, it is a roughly circular area about 30 km in diameter where older rocks have been uplifted as much as 4 km towards the surface and may mark the centre of a very large buried impact crater up to 250 km in diameter. The Bedout High was penetrated by two petroleum exploration wells in the 1970s and 1980s. It is named after nearby Bedout Island.
The Araguainha crater or Araguainha dome is an impact crater on the border of Mato Grosso and Goiás states, Brazil, between the villages of Araguainha and Ponte Branca. With a diameter of 40 kilometres (25 mi), it is the largest known impact crater in South America.
Gosses Bluff is thought to be the eroded remnant of an impact crater. Known as Tnorala to the Western Arrernte people of the surrounding region, it is located in the southern Northern Territory, near the centre of Australia, about 175 km (109 mi) west of Alice Springs and about 212 km (132 mi) to the northeast of Uluru. It was named by Ernest Giles in 1872 after Australian explorer William Gosse's brother Henry, who was a member of William's expedition.
Shoemaker is an impact structure, the deeply eroded remnant of a former impact crater, situated in arid central Western Australia, about 100 km (62 mi) north-northeast of Wiluna. It is named in honour of planetary geologist Eugene Shoemaker.
Tookoonooka is a large meteorite impact structure (astrobleme) situated in South West Queensland, Australia. It lies deeply buried within Mesozoic sedimentary rocks of the Eromanga Basin and is not visible at the surface.
Wolfe Creek Crater is a well-preserved meteorite impact crater (astrobleme) in Western Australia.
Woodleigh is a large meteorite impact structure (astrobleme) in Western Australia, centred on Woodleigh Station east of Shark Bay, Gascoyne region. A team of four scientists at the Geological Survey of Western Australia and the Australian National University, led by Arthur J. Mory, announced the discovery in the 15 April 2000 issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
The 38th parallel structures, also known as the 38th parallel lineament, are a series of seven circular depressions or deformations stretching 700 kilometres (430 mi) across southern Illinois and Missouri and into eastern Kansas, in the United States, at a latitude of roughly 38 degrees north. Estimated at 300 million years old, two are believed to be impact events from meteorites, but other structures are possibly remnants of volcanos.
The Lac Wiyâshâkimî, also called the Clearwater Lakes in English and Allait Qasigialingat by the Inuit, are a pair of annular lakes and impact structures on the Canadian Shield in Quebec, Canada, near Hudson Bay.
The East Warburton Basin in South Australia is the site of a hypothesised large impact crater of the Carboniferous period. The subterranean structure lies buried at a depth of ~4 km, and measures a minimum of 200 km in diameter. For comparison, the Chicxulub crater, which caused the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, is about 180 km in diameter. The East Warburton crater is adjacent to the West Warburton crater, which is also around 200 km in diameter. Combined, they make up the largest known impact zone on Earth, but individually, are smaller than the largest in the world, the 300 km wide Vredefort impact structure in South Africa. The Warburton craters formed when an asteroid or comet, on a collision course with Earth, split into two main pieces and impacted the Australian continent, then part of the Gondwanan supercontinent.
The Diamantina River ring feature is a geomorphic feature that consists of a conspicuous near-360° circular drainage pattern that forms the headwaters of the Diamantina River. It is centred near the Woodstock Station west of Winton, Channel Country, Central West Queensland. This geomorphic feature coincides with a potassium–thorium–uranium radiometric signature that is associated with exposed clay-rich sedimentary rocks of the Cretaceous Winton Formation, high-uranium elevated Cenozoic duricrust surfaces, and high-thorium elevated sediment eroded from the Cenozoic weathering profile. The Diamantina River ring feature is one of several circular crustal structures of diverse origin that have been mapped within Australia. These circular crustal structures include geologic structures such as tectonic domes, circular granite intrusions, volcanic calderas and ring structures, salt domes, impact structures and morphological drainage rings of unknown origin.
