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Possible Large Impact Crater In Nevada

Posted by kdawson on from the no-wonder-it's-burning dept.

While participating in amateur rocket launches in Black Rock Desert (the site of Burning Man), Ian Kluft noticed rocks with some oddities. Through the Internet he learned the characteristics of impact craters, then found some clues in photographs and Google Maps. Examining the area, he collected samples of rock with impact patterns and other evidence. He found that previous geological puzzles in the region are well explained as impact structures. Volunteers are finding peculiarities in satellite imagery of the area. Kluft presents his evidence here — "Submitted for Study: Discovery of Possible Impact Crater at Nevada's Black Rock Desert." This is a preliminary, six-week effort intended to bring the site to the attention of geologists. Confirmation will take some time and more elaborate tools than his group has.

9 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. This just in... Art Bell confirms it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Art Bell, a Nevada legend, has just confirmed that this IS an impact crater, but an impact crater from a UFO! Most importantly, the UFO's occupants are still alive (in human bodies) and will appear on his program to discuss the crash in detail this weekend.

  2. overhead pictures? by radarsat1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is the extent of my geological research abilities:

    http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=40.984045+ N,+118.916016+W&layer=&ie=UTF8&om=1&z=14&ll=40.987 155,-118.916016&spn=0.027277,0.086517&t=k&iwloc=ad dr

  3. Hmmm. Rocks... by Stanistani · · Score: 2, Informative

    The shocked quartz he found, if confirmed, would be a real good indicator of an impact.

    --
    You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
  4. Prospecting? by MontyApollo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I saw some show recently where some guy was making a lot of money finding and selling meteor fragments left over from impact in Kansas. I think in that case it exploded in air, but I don't know whether that means more fragments or not.

  5. The shape bothers me... by srmalloy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not a geologist, but the fact that the crater is described as being oblate -- 30x40 miles -- puts it out of the vast majority of impact craters, which are circular; it takes an impact at a very low angle (under 10) to get significant distortion of the crater. Interestingly, if you look at the map of the crater location and compare it to a map of the previous eruptions of the supervolcano hot spot now under Yellowstone (larger image here), you could also draw the conclusion that it was the crater from an eruption of the hotspot around 18-20 million years ago. The violence of a supervolcano eruption compared to a normal eruption could account for the presence of shatter cones. Comparing this site to the other known calderas from that hot spot.

    1. Re:The shape bothers me... by ikluft · · Score: 5, Informative
      Believe me, I checked for that. :-)

      An example of a confirmed impact crater which is elliptical is the Sudbury Crater in Ontario, Canada. There are plenty of others. It would just mean that the impactor arrived at a steeper angle than those at circular craters.

    2. Re:The shape bothers me... by ikluft · · Score: 3, Interesting
      More info on the Yellowstone/Newberry hot spot tracks can be found with this search: http://www.google.com/search?q=yellowstone+newberr y+%22hot+spot+track%22

      That isn't as clear a picture as the image you found would indicate. Research found by that search show the hot spot tracks for the Yellowstone WY and Newberry OR calderas appear to trace back to a common unexplained origin around the Owhyee Plateau on the OR/NV border.

      Also note that even the meanest volcano can't produce enough pressure to cause shatter cones in rocks. If the pros confirm them, it would mean the only possible causes are an impact or a nuke.

    3. Re:The shape bothers me... by barakn · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The Sudbury crater is over 1.8 billion years old, and thus has had plenty of time for tectonic forces to deform its shape. According to this site the crater "was affected by orogenic deformation that led to shortening of the Structure by large-scale thrusting and folding." It was probably circular when first formed. The thing about low-angle impactors is that they have to pass through more atmosphere than a impactor on a vertical trajectory, and are thus more likely to be destoyed in an airburst, like the Tunguska event in Siberia, or skip off the atmosphere, like the event over the western U.S. in 1972. Of course the Black Rock crater, if it exists, may also have started circular but stretched into an ellipse by normal faulting in the area.

      --
      "I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
  6. Re:Shatter cones by ikluft · · Score: 4, Informative
    The references that I found useful to learn about shatter cones are You have to be careful not to assume that any conical rock is a shatter cone. It's something that the shock wave places in the rock at large and small scales. It's like a fractal in that the pattern exists within the pattern at any scales you can observe.