Astrojunk's Amphitheatre

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

Look what I found...

Anyone remember the discovery of Crater Hickman back in 2008: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/...207065556.html ? Well I was traveling the Kennedy Highway 'virtually' yesterday and spotted this hole in a hill.

I ruled out a few obvious alternate causes such as sink-holes, volcanics, and mining then contacted the same geologist at the ANU who confirmed Crater Hickman. He's put it on the list as a potential discovery has been circulated to those in the game.

What remains is either a field excursion to assess the structure for impact artifacts, or for someone to come up with something like "Oh, yeah, Old Joe dug that 'ole back in the 60's" etc

My next step is to contact Wintonshire Council - there is bound to be a geologist up there that can go kick a rock or two (or local that knows Old Joe!)

The structure is here for anyone to look at and join in the fun speculating:
Lat: 22°13'43.52"S
Long: 142° 3'25.94"E
(and its even on Google street view!)

What else is left for IISSers to discover

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

It certainly has potential as an impact crater. The uplifting in the middle looks pretty classic doesn't it.
I've got a buddy, Mikael Altoff, who is into this stuff, I'll give him a link to this thread and see if he has any opinions on it.

[Ric]

A very interesting site Jonathan

I'll be interested to hear about the geology of the site as well. It will be worthwhile to look for fracturing in the surrounding structures.

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

The main physical evidence to look for are shatter cones (I've learned a lot in 24 hours!) http://waittfoundation.org/ludovic-f...n-remote-congo

The structure is in the middle of channel country and the side that has been eroded away is certainly in keeping with the direction of water flow. The fact that it is in the middle of a channel makes the hope of finding meteor fragments very low except for on the structure itself, and there are plenty of alluvial sediments obscuring any underlying structural evidence.

Ultimately it may be a job for geophys or crystallographers. Which ever way, to get into the Earth Impacts Database it needs to have a published paper describing it.

Alternatively, I could just add it to Wilkipedia which makes it an indisputable fact for 99.999% of the population