Kara crater
Kara is a meteor crater in the Yugorsky Peninsula, Nenetsia, Russia.[1]
Heavily eroded, it is presently 65 km in diameter though it is thought to be originally 120 km before erosion. Its age is estimated to be 70.3 ± 2.2 million years old (Upper Cretaceous). Impactite outcrops located on the Baydarata Gulf (Baydaratskaya) shore north-east of the crater imply that the original size of the crater is the 4th largest on earth [1]. The crater is not exposed to the surface.
The Kara crater lies in the southeastern end of the Yugorsky Peninsula, while the Ust-Kara site lies offshore, 15 km east of the small Kara or Karskaya Guba inlet. It was formerly believed that these two sites were two separate craters and that they formed a twin impact structure from a large-scale meteorite hit in the late Cretaceous. However, it seems that the Ust-Kara site does not exist as a separate site. Apparently, the Suevite outcrops of the Ust-Kara impact structure are only a part of the Kara impact structure. (Hodge 1994 and NASA 1988)
References
- ^ "Kara". Earth Impact Database. Planetary and Space Science Centre University of New Brunswick Fredericton. Retrieved 2008-12-30.
External links
69°6′0″N 64°9′0″E / 69.10000°N 64.15000°E
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