Middlesboro crater

Last updated
Middlesboro crater
Middlesborough astrobleme
Middlesboro, Kentucky; viewed from the Pinnacle Overlook in April, 2013..jpg
The city of Middlesboro is built within the crater
Impact crater/structure
ConfidenceConfirmed [1]
Diameter6 kilometers (3.7 mi)
Age <300 Ma
Permian to late Mesozoic
ExposedYes
DrilledYes
Location
Location Bell County, Kentucky, United States
Coordinates 36°37′N83°44′W / 36.617°N 83.733°W / 36.617; -83.733
Country United States
State Kentucky
USA Kentucky location map.svg
Map pointer.svg
Middlesboro crater
Location of Middlesboro Crater in Kentucky
Access U.S. Route 25E

The Middlesboro crater (or astrobleme) is a meteorite crater in Kentucky, United States. [2] It is named after the city of Middlesborough (both spellings are used), which today occupies much of the crater.

Contents

The crater is approximately 3 miles (about 5 km) wide and its age is estimated to be less than 300 million years (Permian). The impactor is estimated to have been about 100 m in diameter.

History

The Middlesboro crater is located in the Appalachian Mountains, between the Cumberland Mountains and Pine Mountain. It forms part of the string of geological features that made the Cumberland Gap a critical westward passage during the settlement of Kentucky and the Ohio Valley in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Settlements

The town of Middlesboro, built in the crater, was established in 1886 to exploit iron and coal deposits, [3] although the town's founder, Alexander A. Arthur, apparently did not know of the crater's extraterrestrial origin. K. J. Englund and J. B. Roen, working for the U. S. Geological Survey, identified the impact basin in 1962. [4]

Geological features

The 12-mile (19 km) long Cumberland Gap consists of four geologic features: the Yellow Creek valley, the natural gap in the Cumberland Mountain ridge, the eroded gap in Pine Mountain, and Middlesboro crater.

Middlesboro crater is a 3-mile (4.8 km) diameter meteorite impact crater in which Middlesboro, Kentucky, is located. The crater was identified in 1966 when Robert Dietz discovered shatter cones in sandstone, which led to the further identification of shocked quartz. Shatter cones, a rock shattering pattern naturally formed only during impact events, are found in abundance in the area. In September 2003 the site was designated a Distinguished Geologic Site by the Kentucky Society of Professional Geologists. [5]

Without Middlesboro crater, it would have been difficult for packhorses to navigate this gap, formed by differential erosion along one of the subsequent cross faults, [ citation needed ] and improbable that wagon roads would have been constructed at an early date. Middlesboro is the only place in the world where coal is mined inside an impact crater. Special mining techniques must be used in the complicated strata of this crater. (Milam & Kuehn, 36).

Panoramic view from Pinnacle Overlook at Cumberland Gap National Historic Park Cumberland Gap Pinnacle Overlook.jpg
Panoramic view from Pinnacle Overlook at Cumberland Gap National Historic Park

Industrial activity

While coal mining is still the town's primary economic driver, local leaders hope to turn the crater into a tourist destination. [6] In 2003, the Kentucky Society of Professional Geologists designated the area a Distinguished Geologic Site, [7] and the construction of the Cumberland Gap Tunnel makes the town a convenient source of supplies for visitors to Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Middlesboro, Kentucky</span> City in Kentucky, United States

Middlesboro is a home rule-class city in Bell County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 10,334 at the 2010 U.S. census, while its micropolitan area had a population of 69,060.

Avak is an impact crater centered approximately 12 km (7.5 mi) southeast of Utqiagvik, Alaska, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gardnos crater</span>

Gardnos crater is a meteorite impact crater in Nesbyen municipality in Viken county, Norway. It is located inside Meteorite Park (Meteorittparken) at Gardnos 10 km north of the town of Nesbyen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gosses Bluff crater</span> Impact crater in Northern Territory

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kentland crater</span> Impact structure in Indiana, United States

The Kentland structure, also known as the Kentland crater or the Kentland disturbed area, is an impact structure located near the town of Kentland in Newton County, Indiana, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keurusselkä</span> Lake in Finland

Keurusselkä is a lake in Central Finland between the towns of Keuruu to the north and Mänttä to the south. It covers an area of 117.3 km2 (45.3 sq mi). Its average depth is 6.4 m (21 ft) with a maximum depth of 40 m (130 ft). The surface lies at 105.4 m (346 ft) above sea level. The lake is 27 km (17 mi) long and is a part of the Kokemäenjoki water system. Keurusselkä gained international publicity in 2004 when a pair of amateur geologists discovered an ancient impact crater on the western shore of the lake.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lawn Hill crater</span>

Lawn Hill ‘crater’ refers to an Ordovician impact structure, the eroded remnant of a former impact crater, situated approximately 220 km north-north-west of Mount Isa in northwestern Queensland, Australia. The site is marked by an 18 km diameter ring of dolomite hills. The origin of this circular feature was uncertain until the discovery of shatter cones and shocked quartz from uplifted rocks at the centre was reported in 1987.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mistastin crater</span> Impact crater lake in Canada

Mistastin crater is a meteorite crater in Labrador, Canada which contains the roughly circular Mistastin Lake. The lake is approximately 16 km (9.9 mi) in diameter, while the estimated diameter of the original crater is 28 km (17 mi). The age of the crater is calculated to be 36.6 ± 2 million years (Eocene).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Serpent Mound crater</span>

Serpent Mound crater, also known as the Serpent Mound Disturbance, is an eroded meteorite impact crater in Ohio, United States. It lies largely in Adams County, with the northern part mostly in Highland County, except for a small northeast part in Pike County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spider crater</span> Impact crater in Western Australia

Spider is an impact structure, the deeply eroded remnant of a former impact crater, situated in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia, 18 km east of the Mount Barnett Roadhouse on the Gibb River Road. Due to very rugged terrain the site is effectively inaccessible. The name is derived from the visually striking spider-like radiating ridges of quartzite prominently visible from the air or on satellite images.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vepriai crater</span>

Vepriai is the largest impact crater in Lithuania, named after the town of Vepriai located at its center. The crater is not exposed to the surface, having been eroded and covered by sedimentary rocks during the last glacial period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cumberland Gap</span> Narrow pass through the Cumberland Mountains

The Cumberland Gap is a pass in the eastern United States through the long ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, within the Appalachian Mountains and near the tripoint of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. At an elevation of 1,631 feet (497 m) above sea level, it is famous in American colonial history for its role as a key passageway through the lower central Appalachians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shatter cone</span> Geological feature in bedrock resulting from extreme mechanical shock

Shatter cones are rare geological features that are only known to form in the bedrock beneath meteorite impact craters or underground nuclear explosions. They are evidence that the rock has been subjected to a shock with pressures in the range of 2–30 GPa (290,000–4,350,000 psi).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Fe impact structure</span> Impact crater in New Mexico

The Santa Fe impact structure is an eroded remnant of a bolide impact crater in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains northeast of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The discovery was made in 2005 by a geologist who noticed shatter cones in the rocks in a decades-old road cut on New Mexico State Road 475 between Santa Fe and Hyde Memorial State Park. Shatter cones are a definitive indicator that the rocks had been exposed to a shock of pressures only possible in a meteor impact or a nuclear explosion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ramgarh crater</span> Impact crater in the country of India

Ramgarh crater, also known as Ramgarh structure, Ramgarh Dome and Ramgarh astrobleme, is a meteor impact crater of 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) diameter in Kota plateau of Vindhya range located adjacent to Ramgarh village in Mangrol tehsil of Baran district in Rajasthan state of India. When formally accepted as the third crater in India, its diameter size would be between the two already confirmed craters in India - Dhala in Madhya Pradesh with 14 km diameter and Lonar in Buldhana district of Maharashtra with 1.8 km diameter.

The Ritland crater is an impact crater at Ritland farm in Hjelmeland municipality in eastern Rogaland county, Norway. The crater is about 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) east of the village of Hjelmelandsvågen and about 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) south of the Jøsenfjorden. The crater is about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) in diameter, and was created when a meteorite with an estimated diameter of 100 metres (330 ft) struck here about 500–600 million years ago. The crater was later buried by sediments, of which it has been partly recovered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colônia crater</span>

The Colônia crater is a recently confirmed impact crater located in the municipality of São Paulo, Brazil. It is a round bowl-shaped depression, without any obvious central bulge, with a diameter of about 3.6 kilometres (2.2 mi), bounded by a circular ring of hills about 125 metres (410 ft) high relative to the inner depression. Its approximate location is 23°52′15″ South and 46°42′30″ West, 770 metres (2,530 ft) above sea level. The name comes from the town district of Colônia located just north of the feature.

Santa Marta crater is a newly confirmed impact crater in Piauí State, northeastern Brazil. It is 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) in diameter and it is estimated to have formed between 100 and 66 Ma, during the Late Cretaceous.

References

  1. "Barringer". Earth Impact Database . Planetary and Space Science Centre University of New Brunswick Fredericton . Retrieved 2013-08-26.
  2. "Middlesboro". Earth Impact Database . Planetary and Space Science Centre University of New Brunswick Fredericton . Retrieved 2008-12-30.
  3. Archived May 11, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  4. K. A. Milam, J. Evenick, and B. Deane eds. "Field Guide to the Middlesboro and Flynn Creek Impact Structures" (PDF). Impact Field Studies Group. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 6, 2014. Retrieved November 13, 2012.{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. Kortenkamp, Steve (Summer 2004). "Impact at Cumberland Gap: Where Natural and National History Collide". PSI Newsletter. 5 (2): 1–2.
  6. "Kentucky town sees a future in its crater". St. Petersburg Times. Associated Press. 2003-09-20. Retrieved September 16, 2006.
  7. Kortenkamp, Steve (Summer 2004). "Impact at Cumberland Gap: Where Natural and National History Collide" (PDF). PSI Newsletter. 5 (2): 1–2.