Acraman crater

- 32.016666666667135.45Koordinaten: 32 ° 1 '0 "S, 135 ° 27' 0" E

The Acraman Crater is a heavily eroded impact crater in South Australia.

Age and impact

The impact to around 580 million years ago produced an impact structure with a diameter of about 90 kilometers, with more than two-thirds have already been eroded. The crater is about 1.5 billion year old volcanic rocks of the Gawler Ranges in South Australia. On islands in the central part of the impact structure can be found in strongly disordered Yardea dacite traces of shock metamorphism ( shatter cones and shocked quartz ) and a prevalence of Impaktschmelzgestein. Ejecta of Acraman crater are known from the Bunyeroo Formation in the Flinders Ranges and in drill cores of the Officer Basin. The Acraman crater is the largest impact crater in Australia and the seventh largest in the world. The Acraman event could have had a decisive influence on the world of life in the Ediacaran.

Geography

Visually recognizable of the crater is nurmehr by the eponymous Acraman salt lake and a circular depression in the volcanics of the Gawler Ranges.