Meteor Crater Locationless, Locationless, Locationless
By Captain Morgan on 17-Jan-03. Waypoint GC9CE1

I don't know where the crater is but what about the meteor itself.This 1100 pound meteor was found near Nettleton Ms.About 9 mile from my house.It was found in 1870 by Major H.C.Medford.Now it's outside of his Uncles, Mr. M.E.Leake's store in Tupleo Ms

We found this Meteor Crater during the holidays in Australia with Carsten from Team Snowdream.

TFTC

Team Goldregen

Found in Cold Ashton, to the north of Bath, England.

The Vredefort Impact Crater in South Africa Gauteng, about 100KM south of Johannesburg, is one of the oldest and biggest in the world and was proclaimed a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in July 2005.

One day, about 2023 million years ago, the earth was about to change. An asteroid (a really big meteorite) with a diameter of 10 km was racing towards the earth. (This is about the size of five Table Mountains put together.) It was travelling at a speed much faster than a bullet from a gun. The sky lit up when the huge rock burned as it entered the earth’s atmosphere. Then it hit the earth with an explosion that was a thousand times bigger than the biggest bomb known to man. The asteroid penetrated the crust of the earth’s surface and disappeared underneath the ground. Nothing in a 300 km radius would have survived the explosion. (This means that everything was devastated from Pretoria al the way to Bloemfontein.) Clouds of dust and rocks rose up from the earth and blocked the rays of the sun totally from reaching the earth’s surface - as if it was in the middle of a very dark night. It got very cold for a long time - some people say up to a few years. When the dust clouds disappeared, life returned to what it was previously very, very slowly.

Decaturville, Missouri

The Decaturville crater is a meteor crater in Missouri, and is one of the 38th parallel structures.

It is 6 km in diameter and the age is estimated to be less than 300 million years (Permian or younger). The crater is exposed to surface, and is highly eroded.

Because it is all on private property, we had to stand behind a fence (and because it was at night) shine a flashlight at the edge. Since it is located in the Ozarks, it doesn't look particulary different from the surrounding terrain. We spoke with a man who is leasing some farmland there, and he said that there are many meteor fragments from this impact scattered for miles around.

More information can be found here http://www.worldhistory.com/wiki/D/Decaturville-crater.htm
and here
http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~bottke/crater_chain/chain.html

Wetumpka Alabama, USA

This was a tough one. There are not that many meteor craters, and the glamorous ones have all been claimed. We researched craters in the U.S. A. using the links at Captain Morgan's Web page. We narrowed our search down to the Marquez meteor crater in Texas. The sources agree that this crater dates from about 58 million years ago (plus or minus 2 million years), and that the crater is not visible at the surface. In fact, it was originally thought to be caused by natural Earth geological forces. The site Mikko's Phylogeny Archive Main Page - Ecologically Important Meteor Craters of the World shows the center of the strike at N31º17', W96º18', close to the town of Marquez. But other sources, in particular the UCSD site at http://exobio.ucad.edu/Space_Sciences/all_earth_craters.htm shows the center at N31.28º W96.30º. This seems less likely to be the correct location, because it is much closer to the town of Groesbeck, Texas than it is to Marquez. Groesbeck is much larger than tiny Marquez, so it would seem unlikely that this would be called the Marquez meteor crater if it was so close to Groesbeck. But - to make sure, we visited BOTH locations. We've posted pictures showing the area around both locations. The lay of the land is similar both places - both have rolling hills, with trees near the stream valleys, and mostly cleared land used to graze cattle or raise hay on the higher land. One the first location, near Marquez, it is possible to get very close to the center of the strike without going on private land. At the other location, closer to Groesbeck, it is not possible to get closer than about 1000 feet to the center as shown by UCSD. Both are located off dirt roads quite a few miles off the nearest pavement.

This is the meteor crater at Gardnos in Hallingdal, Norway. The crater is also an earthcache, and there is a regular cache in the crater.

I recently Had this Earthcache approved and thought I would submit it again for this Reverse Cache.
The Wells Creek Basin Earthcache
N 36° 21.670 W 087° 39.408
Use waypoint: GCP3FW

You can fit 10 of the Barringer's Meteor crater, Arizona, USA into this one.

On Hwy 149 in Houston County near the Stewart County Line. You are standing inside a meteorite impact crater. The largest in Tennessee, and possible one of the largest found so far in the United States.

Between 100 and 200 million years ago, a large meteorite struck earth around present-day Cumberland City in Central Tennessee. A meteor near 1000 feet in diameter, weighing in excess of 100 million tons and traveling at 10 miles per second (36,000 mph) struck the earth at this location with a shattering impact. Scientists believe it penetrated to a depth of around 2000 feet below the surface and exploded with the force of a 1000-megaton bomb. Shock waves raced in all directions,( Producing Shatter Cones, see source below), and a fiery, mushroom cloud of fine rock dust and debris rose high in the air.

The impact created a crater some 14.0-km (7.0-miles) in diameter, and one-half mile in depth. Scientist believed the earth’s surface appeared to be damaged forever. Millions of years passed and erosion and vegetation softened this ugly scar left by the impact.
The rim of shattered rock disappeared, and the level of adjoining land was lowered hundreds of feet by erosion. Since its discovery, geologists have studied this phenomenon. It was discovered about 1860 when railroad construction revealed rock formations that suggested a violent event had occurred. This crater is now known as the Wells Creek Basin.

TENNESSEE METEOR CRATERS There are three meteor craters located in Tennessee. The 3 mile Flynn Creek Structure is northwest of Cookeville, TN. It is rather distorted due to mountain building in East Tennessee. The Howell Structure is nearly circular about one mile in diameter and is located in Middle Tennessee north of Fayetteville at Howell.

The biggest and best is located west of Clarksville at Cumberland City. An elliptical formation about 10 miles in diameter. It is know as the Wells Creek Basin. Wells Creek and the Cumberland River join at the north wall of the crater. These structures are remnants of the original as nearly a 1000 ft of material may have been eroded away over 200,000,000 year period. Therefore the original craters were larger and the actual age of each is hard to fix.








[This entry was edited by elckg (White Snake) on Monday, July 25, 2005 at 7:31:57 PM.]

[This entry was edited by elckg (White Snake) on Monday, July 25, 2005 at 7:54:55 PM.]

[This entry was edited by elckg (White Snake) on Monday, July 25, 2005 at 8:05:46 PM.]

This Carter is located near a cache I found today called "Mysterious Merna Crater by Mike & Stef, Waypoint GC7AC6).
The following is taken from that page:

"The following is excerpted from an Associated Press article published in the 20 July 2002 edition of the North Platte Telegraph

MERNA, NE (AP) - Professor Wakefield Dort Jr. passionately tells anyone willing to listen that the mile-wide dent near this farm village was created when a meteorite slammed into the Earth as recently as 500 years ago . . . some folks back in Nebraska say his theory is out of this world - full of holes, if you will. In the middle of the debate is 82-year-old Frank Bartak, who was born in a homestead on the edge of the contentious depression and whose family still farms the land in and around it some 10 miles west of Merna. . . The depression - or crater - does look out of place. The Bartaks grow crops in it, but even that doesn't help it blend in much. Rolling fields of corn, soybeans, alfalfa and pasture stretch for miles in all directions up to the depression's edge, which drops 65 feet at some points to the floor below.

Dort believes the depression was formed by the impact of a large meteorite that packed an explosion with the force of several hydrogen bombs between 3,000 and 500 years ago. Dort started studying the site in 1991 after he and some colleagues discovered the unusual dent on a topographic map - a nearly perfectly round formation smack dab in the middle of Nebraska. Dort has collected samples from the site and claims he found thousands of minute black magnetic particles not native to Nebraska. He also notes that Pawnee Indian legend tells of a "thundering cloud" that appeared over the area "leaving behind children of black stone." Dort's team also found a layer of crushed glass about three feet below the surface with a pocket of gray soil underneath. University of Nebraska geologist Vern Souders speculates that what Dort found is fulgurite, which is formed when lightning strikes sand. The Nebraskans said they found the "crater" had the same origin as similar, though less impressive, depressions in the region carved out by relentless winds during dry periods thousands of years ago."

I am not sure what to think about it but it is different.

This is a picture of me, taken in front of Jeptha Knob in Shelby County Kentucky, near Shelbyville. It is the remains of a central rebound/upwelling from a meteor strike about 425 million years ago. The grouping of knobs is about 3 miles wide and is clearly visible from Interstate 64. More information is available at the following site: http://www.uky.edu/KGS/education/meteors.pdf -TeamArgo

Found this mysteri creaters in Australien near Cairns.