Found:5 klm dia. Meteorite buried 1.6 klm below ground

[fringe_dweller]

woah! (news article from the U.S.)

'Scientists: Massive Meteorite Found Near Stockton

(CBS13) STOCKTON An amazing discovery was made in our own backyard as scientists found what they think is a meteorite the size of a small town!

While looking for oil, scientists say they found space dust and possibly a mammoth meteorite. The possible meteorite is buried deep in the ground about 10 miles west of Stockton in an area called Victoria Island.

Scientist believe the meteorite is buried nearly a mile beneath farmland. Three dimensional images show the circular crater created by the rock are estimated to be three miles wide. They say that this event occurred over 50 million years ago.

The impact would have been as powerful as 100,000 atomic bomb blasts and would have been seen and heard for hundreds of miles.

Scientists will return to the site to collect more samples. They hope to someday get a piece of the meteorite itself.'

from here - more in video in link

http://cbs13.com/topstories/local_story_079093729.html

[fringe_dweller]

while on this topic i have recently become fascinated by the Lake Acraman asteroid/comet!? impact site in SA, in Gawler Ranges. one of the biggest in the world (~90klm)
Its on my places to go one day now, along with wolfe creek, and Gosses Bluff craters. wouldnt it be cool to do some imaging from these sites :)

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?ie=UTF8&z=9&ll=-32.007494,135.44529&spn=1.886461,2.848206&t=h&om=1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_craters_on_Earth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Acraman_crater_australia.jpg

[sheeny]

:lol: I started reading this, Kearn, with Stockton (Newcastle NSW) in mind. I was trying to imagine a crater under Tomago or somewhere similar...:lol:

Well I agree Kearn - I'd like to visit some of those terrestrial craters myself! I might have to do a little Google Earth project and have a look at each of them that way until I can manage to actually get there!

Al.

[h0ughy]

Must Agree when I first saw this. Just goes to show you never know whats happened in your neck of the woods, even namesakes??

[fringe_dweller]

LOL guys! will amend original post, hehe :rofl:

Al, might have to wait till I am a 'grey nomad' for my trip!!? hope not :(

isnt just google maps the AA's friend - found some nice dark sites using it :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :prey2:
and checking out neighbours and peoples property boundaries!!! in the map version, in close-up mode, how bizarre - how did they get all the local council land maps overlaid on there :confuse2: not even local gregories have that! I digress tho

re: US meteorite discovery - wonder how come news article meteorite survived intact such an event! very strange, must be very solid/metallic??

[Gargoyle_Steve]

I'm also quiet fascinated by the terrrestrial / geological remnants of impact sites. I reckon this is a way to bring the far away astro stuff to a point where you can see it, touch it, feel it - make it real in a face to face kind of way, if you follow me. (I actually have a small, but growing collection of meteorite fragments - and I won a very good book on the subject at Astrofest last year!)

There are several good impact sites around Australia, and I do hope to visit most of them in time. :rolleyes: Most are in NT or WA (http://geology.com/meteor-impact-craters.shtml)- a bloody long drive from here on the east coast!

When travelling around the outback back in '99 I did get to Gosse Bluff (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/06/17/1055828328658.html)(good photo in link) - the worlds largest comet impact crater. In fact a few days after driving to the central "ring" of hills and having a look at ground level we chartered a Robinson 44 'copter and did a fly over / circle around the site as well. Being only a couple of hours west-ish of Alice Springs it's easily reachable if you are in the area.

A similar distance south of Alice Springs (straight down the highway) lay the Henbury Meteorite Craters (http://bluegumpictures.com.au/australia/southwestofalicesprings/southwestofalicesprings3.php) (more info here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henbury_crater) and here (http://www.meteorites.com.au/favourite/november2006.html)) - one larger crater near 200 metres or so across with several other smaller craters co-located. If memory serves it is supposed to have been caused by a metallic meteorite weighing several tonnes which exloded above ground level before impact, thus several separate large fragments (and hundreds of smaller ones) slammed into the earth fairly hard.

I didn't quite make it to Wolfe Creek in WA, something I am bitterly disappointed about now but I will rectify that at some stage in the future. Possibly a nice long slow trip west and north again (and all points in between) to be scheduled in sometime between now and 2012 when I plan on heading to Cairns for the eclipse.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

While looking up photo links for this post I found the following excerpt from a Mars Society .pdf document (http://www.marssociety.org.au/library/MSA-TEC-JNT-PM-02-02-JNT1_proposal-U-ver0B.pdf)- I knew NASA had looked at the Henbury site as a simulated "off world" environment, most of the rest was news to me but I do find it interesting:

" Australia has been of interest to manned mission planners for some time. The Henbury Craters, near Alice Springs, were studied extensively by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in the 1960’s as part of the Apollo programme.

In recent times, dunes and erosional features of the Strezelecki Desert and alluvial flood plains of Hale River have been analysed as analogues of features evident in data captured by the Global Surveyor Mars Orbiting Camera (MOC) and Mars Orbiting Laser Altimeter (MOLA).

NASA has funded astrobiology research in Australia for the last decade. Recent field work has focussed on ancient hydrothermal spring formations at Mt Painter in the northern Flinders Ranges where the search for metallurgical evidence of past microbial life is regarded as analogous to the search that will be needed on Mars.

This work has included use of the Australian-invented PIMA infra-red spectrometer for characterising hydrated minerals and correlating ground measurements with satellite imagery. This technology is ideally suited to searching for telltale signs of extant life from Mars orbit or on the surface by the first crews."

[fringe_dweller]

Steve, I envy your trip to Gosse's Bluff :) what a buzz! :) I kinda remember you had a thread on this trip once? any pics?

had a mate who went to wolfe creek and took a stitched panorama shot of it back in the '80's that was what piqued my interest firstly anyway - its great photo montage, one of my favourites of his. i keep picturing the shot I want in my mind, with just enough moonlight to light the scene, but still with enough stars to do the job :thumbsup: maybe with a big comet in shot ;) we can dream!

some awesome links to mate, cheers!

henbury is definately a lot more realistic target for me, living here, I suppose.

with comets, i dont understand how you get an impact crater easily, they are too fragile (being iceblocks or 'dirt balls' even if they are a little rocky in composition, they are still loosely bonded and easily come apart? and usually break up/disintergrate easily - well before the ground ie Tunguska is thought to have possibly been a cometary type body, possibly, and that is why it didnt make it to the ground, even tho it is connected strongly with taurids which are asteroidal!. I guess if they are big enough, they might do it? plenty of theories out here!
but then many asteroids are thought were possibly once comets, and have lost all their gasses and are defunct. interesting area ;)
cheers - and here's hoping we all get to see them all before too long :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[fringe_dweller]

btw in my travels i saw a Dr Karl page that said

'The most famous one is Wolf Creek Crater (WA, 19º10'S, 127º48'E),
about 130 kilometres south of Halls Creek. It's the second most
perfect crater known on the planet. The American astronauts came to
train in it and to get a feel of what the moon craters would be like. It's
a very grand crater, about 900 metres across, with a well-formed rim
towering 25 metres over the surrounding countryside. The original
crater floor is about 150 metres below the rim, but has been partly
filled in by wind-blown dirt'

http://www.abc.net.au/labnotes/read/astronomy/meteors/default.htm

that was news to me! ??