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Collision With Huge Asteroid Caused 17 Kilometer Diameter Crater Found in Congo

August 9, 2011 Comments off

nanopatentsandinnovations

Scientists have newly confirmed the Luizi impact structure, Democratic Republic of Congo– and provide insights into central uplift formation and post-impact erosion

Ludovic Ferriere of the Austria’s Natural History Museum and colleagues report on the large, ~17-km-diameter Luizi structure, located in the remote and politically tumultuous Democratic Republic of Congo.

Credit:  42nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conferenc
Based on their expedition, the first to this site in almost a century, they were able to find shatter cones and shocked quartz grains, which are rock features only found in impact structures, thus, allowing them to confirm the meteorite impact origin of the crater. Luizi is the first confirmed meteorite impact structure in Central Africa, and also the largest, best-preserved impact crater to be discovered in the past several years. This finding brings the number of known impact craters on Earth to 182.
Because of its preservation state and the shape of the structure, with an inner ring, the Read more…
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