Crater From 1908 Tunguska Blast Found

MaineCoasts writes "A team of scientists from the Marine Science Institute in Bologna claims to have found the crater left by the aerial blast of a comet or asteroid in 1908 in the Tunguska region of Siberia. The blast flattened 770 square miles (2,000 square kilometers) of forest, but to date no remains or crater have been found. This has left open the question of what kind of object made the impact. The team believes that, contrary to previous studies, nearby Lake Cheko is only one century old and 'If the body was an asteroid, a surviving fragment may be buried beneath the lake. If it was a comet, its chemical signature should be found in the deepest layers of sediments.' The team's findings are based on a 1999 expedition to Tunguska and appeared in the August issue of the journal Terra Nova."

Comments

Re:I've always wondered

[eldavojohn]

At the time I wondered, after seeing all those flattened trees, how they failed to find the crater. Wouldn't it just be a case of going to several spots, drawing a parallel line to the flattened trees, then looking on a map for the point where the lines intersect? Presumably all the trees fell "away" from the blast area. No, the explosion was above ground level, see our prior discussion on this.

Also, my post on this has a link to a PDF with a sketch of the breaking apart and trajectories.

Also, remember how long ago this happened. There was an expedition there but they didn't have the technology we did. I'm not sure if the tree patterns would help you 100 years later.

Googlink

[PhilHibbs]

Google map of the point that the National Geographic map link goes to

Uni. Bologna homepage on Tunguska

[Paul Jakma]

Uni of Bologna have a site on Tunguska, including a whole section on this new, possible crater - with pictures.