Jabel Waqf as Suwwan crater

31.04722222222236.805Koordinaten: 31 ° 2 ' 50 "N, 36 ° 48' 18" O

The Jabal Waqf as - Suwwan (Arabic جبل وقف الصوان, DMG Ǧabal Waqf aṣ - Ṣuwwān, also Jabal Waqf as Suwwan and Jebel Waqf it Swwan ) is a circular geological formation in Jordan, which is interpreted as a meteorite crater. The crater was discovered in 2005 by geologists Elias Salameh and Hani Khoury from the University of Jordan, together with the German professor Werner Schneider and has a diameter of 5.5 km. The size of the meteorite in its impact, the crater was formed, was estimated by Professor Salameh to 100 m in diameter. The impact velocity was assumed to be 40-50 km / s. The energy released was set equal to the 5000 times the Hiroshima bomb. An impact of this magnitude would have the atmospheric temperature within several 10 km to more than 1000 ° C increased and thus thrown millions of tons of rock, dust, steam and smoke into the atmosphere, with areas such as modern-day Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and the northern part of Saudi Arabia would have been completely destroyed and burned. This in turn would have produced a globe for seamless cloud, darkness, rain over the years and subsequent flooding would have resulted.

The discovery in 2006 attracted great attention, because the age of the crater was initially estimated at less than 10,000 years. This meant that the media speculated on an observation of the impact by humans, possible effects on early cultures as well as a link to the story of the Flood. Meanwhile, the crater is, however, dated to the Eocene, ie an age 37-56 million years ago.