Imagine staring at the sky, which gradually gets
closer, more and more closely. That point doubling in size every second,
to darken the sky. His entry into the atmosphere is accompanied by light
and heat, the giant rock wrapped in a meteor full of death that goes directly
to you.
It sounds like the introduction of a catastrophic film, however not very far
from reality as these impacts ended the lives of potential witnesses to the
event in his time, leaving only the record of their impact on Earth's
surface. Today we will show the largest impact craters that have impacted
the Earth. In ascending order according to their size, see:
1. Barringer Crater, Arizona, U.S.
This crater was once called Devil's Canyon (Canyon Diablo Crater) and the
meteorite that created the crater is officially called the Canyon Diablo
meteorite, a name can be found in all official labeled fragments of the
meteorite. Scientists often refer to it as Barringer Crater in honor of
Daniel Barringer, who was the first to suggest that the crater was the result
of a meteorite impact. It is estimated that the impact that created the
crater occurred about 50,000 years ago during the Pleistocene period, when the
climate of the Colorado Plateau was much cooler and wetter. Most of the
meteorite was vaporized. It measures 0.75 miles (1.2 km) wide, is 575 feet
(175 m) deep and has a rim 148 ft (45 m) above the surrounding plain.
2. Bosumtwi, Ghana, West Africa
Bosumtwi, situated within the crater of an ancient meteorite impact, consists
of about 8 kilometers in diameter and is the only natural lake in
Ghana. It lies about 30 km southeast of Kumasi and is a recreational
area. There are about 30 villages near the lake, with a combined population
of over 70,000 people. The Ashanti consider Bosumtwi a sacred
lake. According to traditional beliefs, the souls of the dead come here to
bid farewell to the god Twi. Because of this, is admissible only fish in
the lake on wooden planks.
3. Deep Bay, Canada
Located near the southwestern tip of Reno Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada. In
a complex structure fully submerged and low central uplift is believed to have
been formed some 100 million years (some say 140 million), when a large
meteorite crashed in the area. It has about 13 km wide (8 miles) and
consists of a very deep lake and irregular.
4. Aorounga Impact Crater, Chad,
Central Africa
Aorounga is a crater caused by a meteorite impact that formed 345 million years
in an area of the Sahara Desert, northern Chad, in Africa. It is
estimated that a comet or an asteroid with a diameter of 1 mile (1.6 km across)
hit the Earth's crust. These impacts occur only about once every million
years.
The crater is about 11 miles (17 km) wide and is
accompanied by two circular features that were revealed by SIR-C radar space
shuttle, with an area of about 22 miles (36 km). If the hypothesis is
correct, the dark band in the upper right corner could be a second impact
crater, or failing that, Aorounga can be part of a chain of multiple impact
craters.
5. Gosses Bluff, Australia
Approximately 142 million years ago, a large asteroid or comet about 22 km in
diameter, crashed at 40 km / sec in the southern Northern Territory, near the
center of Australia, and released a large amount of energy equivalent to 22,000
megatons of TNT. One of the most significant impact structures of the
world, the crater Gasses Bluff. The dimensions are impressive: it has about 15
miles (24km) in diameter and an estimated depth of 16,400 feet (5,000
m). Its impact is only a distant memory because its surface is badly
eroded.
6. Mistastin Lake, Canada
Located in Labrador, Canada, Mistastin crater is the result of a crash of a
meteorite that caused a giant hole about 28 km wide (17.4 miles), 38 million
years ago. Since then, the eastward movement of the glaciers has
drastically reduced their size and causing the appearance of the wheels and the
lake that bears his name. It occupies an elliptical depression, tending
east-northeast, roughly about 11 by 7 miles in size. In the middle of the
lake, there is an accurate central island which could be the central uplift of
a complex structure of the crater.
7. Clearwater lakes, Canada
Are a pair of circular lakes in the Canadian Shield in Quebec, Canada, near
Hudson Bay. The lakes are actually one body of water dotted with islands
that form a "dotted line" between eastern and western parts. The
name comes from the clear water it contains. It is believed corresponds to
the impact of an asteroid pair which crashed for about 290 million years ago,
near the east coast of Hudson Bay. The larger of the two craters is West
Clearwater Lake with a diameter of about 32 km (20 miles), while the smaller,
east of Clearwater Lake has a diameter of about 22 km (13.7 miles). The
objects hitting gravitation ally bound state could do a binary asteroid, a
suggestion first made Thomas Wm. Hamilton in a letter of 1978 to the
magazine Sky & Telescope.
8. Kara-Kul, Tajikistan
At an altitude of 13,000 feet (3,900 m) above sea level lays Kara-Koll, also
known as Kara-kul: is an endorsees lake of 25 km in diameter in the Pamir
Mountains in Tajikistan. A peninsula projecting from the Southern shore and an island in the
north, dividing the water into two basins. The east is shallow, 13 to 19
meters, but in western background is more than 200 meters. The impact
occurred about 5 million years. Kara-Koll was discovered only recently,
through satellite imagery. 9. Manicouagan, Canada
Manicouagan
Lake (Lake Manicouagan) also known as the "eye of Quebec" is an
annular lake located in central Quebec, Canada, and corresponding to the eroded
remains of an ancient crater, due to the impact of an asteroid 5 km in
diameter, dug a hole about 100 km in diameter. Today the crater diameter was
reduced to 72 miles due to erosion and sedimentary processes. Recent
research has shown that the crater has an age of about 214 million years,
however, this impact could not be the cause of mass extinction of
Triassic-Jurassic.
10. Chicxulub, Mexico
Buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico near the village of Chicxulub
(meaning "tail of the devil" in Mayan), measures more than 180
kilometers in diameter, forming one of the largest impact in the world; it is
estimated that the bolides that formed the crater was at least ten kilometers
in diameter. The impact occurred about 65 million years ago when a comet
or an asteroid the size of a small city crashed into the Earth causing a
destructive force equivalent to 100 treason of TNT, causing destructive
mega-tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions around the world. The other corresponds to Doltish crater, discovered in 2002 by a group of researchers from the University Of Aberdeen, UK. The finding of a second crater in Ukraine suggests that dinosaurs became extinct by the dual impacts rather than one as previously thought.
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