Amelia Creek crater facts for kids
 Location in Australia
|
|
| Impact crater/structure | |
|---|---|
| Confidence | Confirmed |
| Diameter | ~20 km (12 mi) |
| Age | 1640-600 Ma Proterozoic |
| Exposed | Yes |
| Drilled | No |
| Location | |
| Location | Davenport Range |
| Coordinates | 20°51′S 134°53′E / 20.850°S 134.883°E |
| Country | Australia |
| State | Northern Territory |
The Amelia Creek crater is a very old impact crater located in the Davenport Range, Northern Territory, Australia. It's not a perfectly round hole you can easily see today. Instead, it's what's left of a huge impact site after millions of years of erosion.
This crater is special because it's hidden within very old rocks. These rocks have been folded and broken over time, making it hard to spot where the impact happened. Scientists only found it by looking for special rocks called shatter cones. These unique rocks only form when something hits the ground with incredible force.
What is an Impact Crater?
An impact crater is a bowl-shaped hole left on a planet's surface. It forms when a large space rock, like a meteorite, crashes into it. On Earth, many old craters have been worn away by wind, water, and other natural forces. This makes them hard to recognize.
Discovering Amelia Creek Crater
The Amelia Creek crater is located in a low mountain range. The rocks here are very old, from a time called the Palaeoproterozoic era. These rocks include sedimentary rocks (formed from layers of sand and mud) and volcanic rocks (formed from lava). Over millions of years, these rocks have been squished and cracked. This made it very difficult to see any signs of an old impact.
Scientists finally discovered the crater by finding shatter cones. These are cone-shaped rocks with special grooves. They are a sure sign that a powerful impact happened. These shatter cones were found near the center of the suspected impact area.
Size and Age of the Crater
Around where the shatter cones were found, there's a large area of rock that looks strangely bent and broken. This area is about 20 by 12 kilometers (about 12 by 7.5 miles) wide. Scientists believe this damaged zone gives us the best idea of how big the original crater was.
The way the rocks are damaged suggests the space rock might have hit the Earth at a very shallow angle. This is called an "oblique impact."
The impact happened a very long time ago, between 1660 and 600 million years ago. To put that in perspective, dinosaurs appeared much later, around 230 million years ago! This means the Amelia Creek impact happened long before dinosaurs walked the Earth. We know this because the impact happened after the old Paleoproterozoic rocks were folded. But it happened before younger rocks from the Neoproterozoic and Cambrian periods were laid down on top of them.
