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As I was flying out west, I was noticing the desert floor and thinking..."Where the hell are the craters?"
The earth gets bombarded daily by literal tons of debris from space, and every few hundred or thousand years one makes it through that leaves a mark. If you look at Mars (which looks like our desert) it's an obvious comparison. The earth of course has one big thing that Mars doesn't (anymore) and that's water. So I get that over millions of years a crater could get filled in. Also, the American desert wasn't always a desert, it was an ocean at some point too...so that means LOTS of water. But still, it's been a desert for a LOOOOONG time, so I would expect to see evidence of some recent impacts.
Anyways..I was looking, and hard, and didn't find squat. Until. I spotted this beauty, but it has another possible explanation. It is possible that this is from volcanic activity...there was way more than I knew or expected. Where I spent my first day hiking outside of Vegas, the Valley of Fire, is largely the result of volcanic activity. Anyways..all I can tell you about this crater is that it was east of the Grand Canyon but west of the mountains.

CameronBornAndBred wrote:As I was flying out west, I was noticing the desert floor and thinking..."Where the hell are the craters?"
The earth gets bombarded daily by literal tons of debris from space, and every few hundred or thousand years one makes it through that leaves a mark. If you look at Mars (which looks like our desert) it's an obvious comparison. The earth of course has one big thing that Mars doesn't (anymore) and that's water. So I get that over millions of years a crater could get filled in. Also, the American desert wasn't always a desert, it was an ocean at some point too...so that means LOTS of water. But still, it's been a desert for a LOOOOONG time, so I would expect to see evidence of some recent impacts.
Anyways..I was looking, and hard, and didn't find squat. Until. I spotted this beauty, but it has another possible explanation. It is possible that this is from volcanic activity...there was way more than I knew or expected. Where I spent my first day hiking outside of Vegas, the Valley of Fire, is largely the result of volcanic activity. Anyways..all I can tell you about this crater is that it was east of the Grand Canyon but west of the mountains.

crater1.jpg

crater.jpg

VERY cool post and good question. I, of course, have not a clue as to the answer but totally appreciate the question.

I add: How "unique" is our atmospere? I know it works in large part as a missle (a.k.a. meteor) defense shield, but still objects get through. Does Mars have anything close to a similar atmosphere?

-EarlJam

For some reason, I associate rthomas at that board over yonder with geology...

EarlJam wrote:

CameronBornAndBred wrote:As I was flying out west, I was noticing the desert floor and thinking..."Where the hell are the craters?"
The earth gets bombarded daily by literal tons of debris from space, and every few hundred or thousand years one makes it through that leaves a mark. If you look at Mars (which looks like our desert) it's an obvious comparison. The earth of course has one big thing that Mars doesn't (anymore) and that's water. So I get that over millions of years a crater could get filled in. Also, the American desert wasn't always a desert, it was an ocean at some point too...so that means LOTS of water. But still, it's been a desert for a LOOOOONG time, so I would expect to see evidence of some recent impacts.
Anyways..I was looking, and hard, and didn't find squat. Until. I spotted this beauty, but it has another possible explanation. It is possible that this is from volcanic activity...there was way more than I knew or expected. Where I spent my first day hiking outside of Vegas, the Valley of Fire, is largely the result of volcanic activity. Anyways..all I can tell you about this crater is that it was east of the Grand Canyon but west of the mountains.

crater1.jpg

crater.jpg

VERY cool post and good question. I, of course, have not a clue as to the answer but totally appreciate the question.

I add: How "unique" is our atmospere? I know it works in large part as a missle (a.k.a. meteor) defense shield, but still objects get through. Does Mars have anything close to a similar atmosphere?

-EarlJam

Mars' atmosphere contains less than 1% of the mass of Earth's atmosphere. It is extremely "thin", which doesn't provide an opportunity for meteors to generate friction and burn up as they enter the atmosphere.

It's hard to say how unique our atmosphere is. Given the size and scale of the universe, I feel like there have to be other atmospheres like ours. The real question is if we'll ever be able to find one and so far, the outlook is grim.

The Earth has a tremendous amount of surface activity that erodes craters. Wind, water and tectonic activity. Since our atmosphere burns up most meteors, only the real big ones leave big craters, anyway. And these are somewhat infrequent. On top of that, any of the real old ones have weathered so badly you can only see traces.

Conversely, a place like the moon with virtually no atmosphere and absolutely no erosion activity on the surface leads to a tremendous amount of visible craters.

According to this website, only about 120 terrestrial impact craters have been identified.
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/tercrate.htm

Fun stuff CBaB. It looks like the Barringer Craterin Arizona. I went and saw it on my road trip across America. Unfortunately, I lost all the photos and their backups. I still have the video, which reminds me I need to transfer it.

As DukeUsul points out, there really aren't that many impact craters on Earth. You can find them all in the Earth Impact Database.

Miles wrote:Fun stuff CBaB. It looks like the Barringer Craterin Arizona. I went and saw it on my road trip across America. Unfortunately, I lost all the photos and their backups. I still have the video, which reminds me I need to transfer it.

As DukeUsul points out, there really aren't that many impact craters on Earth. You can find them all in the Earth Impact Database.

Looks similar, but I don't think they are the same, the one I took the photo of seems to be more filled in. Here is another picture of Barringer.


I think I will post this over yonder, too.

CameronBornAndBred wrote:

Miles wrote:Fun stuff CBaB. It looks like the Barringer Craterin Arizona. I went and saw it on my road trip across America. Unfortunately, I lost all the photos and their backups. I still have the video, which reminds me I need to transfer it.

As DukeUsul points out, there really aren't that many impact craters on Earth. You can find them all in the Earth Impact Database.

Looks similar, but I don't think they are the same, the one I took the photo of seems to be more filled in. Here is another picture of Barringer.


I think I will post this over yonder, too.

If it's not Barringer, then I'm sorry to say that it's probably not an impact crater.

Miles wrote:

CameronBornAndBred wrote:

Miles wrote:Fun stuff CBaB. It looks like the Barringer Craterin Arizona. I went and saw it on my road trip across America. Unfortunately, I lost all the photos and their backups. I still have the video, which reminds me I need to transfer it.

As DukeUsul points out, there really aren't that many impact craters on Earth. You can find them all in the Earth Impact Database.

Looks similar, but I don't think they are the same, the one I took the photo of seems to be more filled in. Here is another picture of Barringer.


I think I will post this over yonder, too.

If it's not Barringer, then I'm sorry to say that it's probably not an impact crater.

Which is why vulcanism is an option. It could be a cauldron. Somebody knows!

CameronBornAndBred wrote:
Which is why vulcanism is an option. It could be a cauldron. Somebody knows!

Calling Mr. Spock! Calling Mr. Spock!