Asteroid impacts are one of the most destructive forces in the solar system. On Earth, an asteroid impact had made most of life destroyed, namely in the age of the dinosaurs. However, the deadly asteroid impact may also have given birth to the seeds of life soon after Earth was born. The effects of this asteroid impact lasted for billions of years and can be seen today. Here are 10 giant craters that come from the collisions of known asteroids on Earth:
1. Vredefort Crater
Vredefort Crater is the oldest and largest asteroid impact crater on Earth. According to scientists' estimates, this crater in South Africa measures 186.411 miles. This crater is the result of an asteroid impact larger than South Africa's Table Mountain and produced a giant crater 2.2 billion years ago.
2. Sudbury Crater
Sudbury Crater is in Ontario, Canada, with a width of 80.7783 miles which is the result of an asteroid impact 1.85 billion years ago. Based on the results of rock fragments found in Minnesota, which is 497.09 miles away, the size of this crater originally spanned an area of 161,557 miles.
3. Chicxulub Crater
Chicxulub Crater is thought to be evidence of an asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. Thin layers of exotic iridium metal from meteor impacts had been detected worldwide in the Cretaceous mass extinction before Chicxulub was discovered. Today, the meteorite that carved the Chicxulub crater on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula is widely thought to have caused or greatly contributed to the mass extinction of the late Cretaceous 65 million years ago, including the end of the dinosaurs. Some scientists estimate that the original Chicxulub crater may be larger than the Sudbury crater in Ontario. Estimates of its original diameter range up to a diameter of 149,129 miles and its current size is 93.2057 miles.
4. Popigai Crater
A rare find buried in Russia's Popigai crater: diamonds. About 35 million years ago, a meteorite struck a carbon-rich graphite rock deposit in Siberia. The enormous pressure and temperature turned the carbon in the region into diamond. The crater is 62,1371 miles wide and now holds huge diamond reserves, according to the Russian government.
5. Manicouagan Crater
Our first lake-filled crater, Manicouagan in Quebec is one of the largest and best-preserved craters on the planet. The 62.1371-mile-wide crater is about 214 million years old.
6. Acraman Crater
Lake Acraman was originally an asteroid impact crater about 580 million years ago in South Australia. This crater measures 55.9234 miles in diameter. Impact ejecta from the crater can be found in the Flinders Range 186.411 miles to the east, among rocks with fossils of the first complex life forms on Earth.
7. Chesapeake Bay Crater
Buried beneath the mud of the ocean floor, the Chesapeake Bay Crater off the coast of Virginia is estimated to be 35 million years old. The curvy western coastline of the Chesapeake Bay takes its shape from a marine crater 52.8166 miles wide. A drill core revealed the first clues that a large impact crater was buried beneath the bay in 1983, when the core gave rise to a 20 centimeter thick layer of impact ejecta.
8. Morokweng Crater
Morokweng Crater is buried beneath South Africa's Kalahari Desert, which geologists discovered through remote sensing surveys. But scientists got a shock when they drilled into the crater for rock samples to confirm the impact. The remains of the meteorite that created this crater are still in its depths. The drill brought back the original 25 centimeter shard of the meteorite from a depth of 770 meters. Morokweng was formed 145 million years ago and is 43,496 miles wide.
9. Kara Crater
The Kara Crater is an eroded crater 70.3 million years ago on Russia's Yugorsky Peninsula. Researchers think the 40.3891-mile-wide crater was once more than 74.5645 miles in diameter.
10. Beaverhead Crater
This 600 million year old crater spans Montana and Idaho and is the second largest impact crater in the United States. The remains of the asteroid impact emerged on the surface of the 37.2823 mile-wide crater at Beaverhead in southwest Montana. The crater is now centered in Challis, Idaho.
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