10 Greatest Major-Impact Craters on Earth

I always thought this looks pretty impacty:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=56.46249,-79.958496&spn=6.876196,22.719727&t=h&z=6

Here too, just on a smaller scale. What's up with Canada and it's large amount of strikes? Is it just because of the size of the landmass?

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=56.46249,-79.958496&spn=6.876196,22.719727&t=h&z=6

You forgot the Chesapeake Bolide. Google it!

Lonar Crater in India is also a good one. How come it is missed

hmmm, that does look suspiciously impacty. Perhaps it's yet another crater to add to Canada's illicit history of being slammed into by space rocks.

What about Vredefort?

Had to go and ruin a great article with "and widespread greenhouse effect that caused long-term environmental changes" didn't you.

Actually the aerosols kicked up by the impact had the opposite effect and obscurred the Sun for years.

Another interesting impact was at the Nördlinger Ries (wikipedia), being 24km in diameter around 14 million years ago. It's rather hard to spot on satellite images, being used as farm land for some x-thousand years, but the 700m wide rock that crashed there erased everything in a 60 miles radius in an instant, and has thrown boulder fragments as far as 300 miles away. Oh, and it turned the ground 10 miles deep into rubble.

Canada was "wiped clean" by glaciers during the last ice age - perhaps that's why it's impacts are more visible. There are probably just as many elsewhere, but buried by overburden.

John: I have this feeling as well. Look at any rocky planet in our solar system. "peppered". I'm sure earth is no different.

How about the Sudbury Crater?

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/S/Sudbury_Crater.html

The eroded remains of a giant, 1.85-billion-year-old impact crater in Ontario, Canada. The Sudbury Crater, at almost 200 km across, is roughly the size of the much younger Chicxulub Basin. But whereas the latter is believed to have been caused by an asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, along with many other life forms at the K-T boundary, it appears that the Sudbury Crater was formed by a comet.

As we all know, most of the Earth is water. I wonder how many deadly strikes hit the ocean in Earth's history? Could an ocean strike still have global repurcussions or have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs?

Unfortunately, The Vredefort Crater was left out, which is the oldest and largest visible meteor impact crater in the world, twice the size of the Chicxulub crater associated with the extinction of the dinosaurs. I think a little more research will go a great way, after all, this is a World Heritage site and many experts agree, it is the biggest and most visible in the entire world. Thanks.

As someone mentioned above this article actually failed to include the single largest "verified" crater on Earth the Vredefort impact structure in South Africa:

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

Number two in size also didn't make the list, the Sudbury, Ontario Canada crater:

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

If confirmed, a major contender for "greatest" of all is the Wilkes Land crater in East Antarctica:

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

there is also kebira in egypt. it comes in at about 31 km in diameter.

Then there's the Siljan ring in sweden. Some 360 M years old, 55 KM across. Not as pretty as the canadian and australian ones, but there's been a few ice-ages grinding away on the bedrock.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=60.99975,15.010071&spn=0.664453,1.820984&t=h&z=9

where the hell do you place the Sudbury Basin found in Greater Sudbury, Ontario? it is by far much larger then chicxulub crater!
From wikipedia:
The Sudbury Basin is 62 km long, 30 km wide and 15 km deep. It was created as the result of a 10 km meteorite impact...
....Its present size is believed to be a smaller portion of a 250 km round crater

"Deep Bay is a strikingly circular, very deep and unusually irregular and shallow lake."
Um... deep or shallow? I don't grok.

FYI, you can also see the Clearwater Lakes craters on the right edge of the links posted above. The Canadian Shield is very old rock, geologically, so it is preserving hundreds of millions of years of impact data, not just tens of millions as in many other places.

Eastern Canada is comprised of lots of very old rocks. When you have been around for a long time, you get kind of beat up.

Questionably, the whole Czech Republic is a very old crater http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=49.546598,14.996338&spn=5.090198,8.173828&t=k&z=7

"Canada was “wiped clean” by glaciers during the last ice age - perhaps that’s why it’s impacts are more visible. There are probably just as many elsewhere, but buried by overburden."

That's terrible! How can we stop these glaciers and their destructive ways? Must be Republicans.

More great photos of impact craters on National Geographic's website, including a wht happened when an object the size of a 15-story building exploded over Siberia, and the latest on what scientists are planning to do to avoid the next killer asteroid:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/08/earth-scars/stone-text

What about Wolf Creek Meteorite Crater in Australia?

19º10'22" S
127º47'38" E

You also forgot the Manson Crater, located under Manson, Iowa. 38 km diameter, 74 million years old. Unfortunately it is impossible to see due to the glaciers of the last ice age, which filled it with soil and flattened all the surrounding area to the same level.

Sometimes, it ain't what ya don't know, but what ya know for sure that just ain't so... For an alternative explanation of crater formation please check out thunbolts.info. I do not ask that you believe this explanation, only that you consider it, neither disbelieving nor believing. Thank you for your willingness to explore your world view!

Man, seems like we are target practice for the cosmos. I know the others see the same (or more) amount of meteors and stuff, but still.. Feel like we're playing dodgeball with the universe.

Please include " Lonar " Impact Crater in Central India
1.4kilometer diameter & having a deep salt water lake

Please up-date this... Barrington shouldn't even be on a list of "10 greatest major" well in what sense? Popularity? Degree of fame? At first glance it seems size is your category... By that you should be excluding Chicxulub as no.1. and Barrington oof this list. There are several website indexes of proven impact structures you can research to up date this list. With advancing satellite technologies and public access to programs like google earth many new finds are happening...

Please up-date this... Barrington shouldn't even be on a list of "10 greatest major" well in what sense? Popularity? Degree of fame? At first glance it seems size is your category... By that you should be excluding Chicxulub as no.1. and Barrington off this list. There are several website indexes of proven impact structures you can research to up date this list. With advancing satellite technologies and public access to programs like google earth many new finds are happening...

the presentation and images of the meteor impact locations on earth simply give me the feeling of guilt to our almighty god that i have to pray 5 times a day to thank god in saving our dear planet Earth. Please Check also the Phillipines famous TAAL Lake when it was hit by meteor and keep me informed. thnks and more power

You forgot the biggest and most important one!

The one that split up Pangea!

The Crater that we now know as The Gulf of Mexico!

Cut out the land masses on a world map, Now piece them together like a jigsaw puzzle, you see the only hole not filled is The Gulf of Mexico!

An plausable explaination for the high frequency of strikes in the northern most parts of earth, First because the rotation and the atmosphere (temp, barometeric pressure, etc) would logically cause that area to perhaps deflect smaller objects, the cooler air of the north allowing less resistance, allowing such strikes.

The laws of physics and I think electricity coupled with the magnetic poles of the earth make that happen! +/- = North/South.

That seems like a logical explaination for that question Kenny D. had, I don't think land mass has anything to do with it.

I see many people using Wikipedia as a reference to other craters on here. Please keep in mind, Wiki is a publicly edited source of information. People can add and change whatever they want to suit their needs. If you are going to suggest other craters for this list, use a site that is more credible and has value such as the National Geographic website http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ or the United States Geological Survey website http://www.usgs.gov/

Although you will have to do a little searching, the articles on these sites are done by experts/scientists in the field.

The metores or astroides, brought death to the time they occured but, they also brought new life, we're here now. Is this our death knell for the future.

I've heard there is a very large (Biggest on earth) likely impact crater in the Antarctic from a Billions of years ago impact

Thank you. These photos and this article was well worth the time to read it.

A couple of other fascinating craters: Bohemia - The western part of the Czech Republic with Prague as it's center seems to be one giant impact site, but I've always wanted to know when this occurred.

Middleboro, Tennessee - On a trip to the Cumberland Gap, I found out that immediately to the west is the eroded remains and deformed bedrock of an impact crater that struck directly into mountains. Very interesting.

UHHH! can you put info about beaverhead crater in there because im doing a project and i need to know why scientists think its there! PLEASE AND THANKYOU!
(: (: (: (:

U need a close up shot of that australia crater because i need something for my school project. But you still got some good pics.

All these photos are very good, I like
Greetings

Do you know top crater ever!

Thank you. RB

Greetings -

Just north of the USA-Canadian border, above the NH ME borders in Quebec IS

Mont Mégantic

It looks to me, from sat. pics and TERRAIN map - to be a meteor creator that was made during the last ice-age. Like it went through the glacier that was retreating. It's shape & features are too defined to be anything else. ??

Is 45.472483, -71.213436Address:?

Placement on map is approximate
+45° 28' 20.94", -71° 12' 48.37"

If anybody knows, please respond......

- Dr Trazabone

The largest crater is at 24* 40'S ,29*40'E. Google Earth shows the extent very clearly. For confirmation compare the mineral deposits of this area to that of other known meteorite impact sites and draw your own conclusions. This area is called the Bushveld Supergroup. Google that and be amazed that it is not wellknown.

we are going to blow ourselves up then the asteroid will make sure we never do this again
people never learn

the world is sodom and gomorrah
the righteous got screwed for a drug
we will all die beccause of a drug?

GOD will destroy this planet like all the other planets
its good that drugs are so important
lets do more drugs and see if we can speed the explosion

holyyyy crap.
that is scary.
what technology do we have to prevent this from happening again.
none

To those wondering why Canada seems to have had more than its fair share of asteroid/meteor strikes, another thing to consider is that most of the country consists of a very large, hard, old and solid mass of rock called the Canadian Shield. Put a dent into it and the evidence remains visible for a lot longer because the rock erodes so slowly. Also, because the Canadian Shield is so solid, it is able to resist tectonic forces, so there is much less geological folding or faulting, which in other parts of the world has probably hidden the evidence of many an impact crater. I saw an interesting documentary series recently that explained how these strikes are simply a continuation of the process by which all the planets in our solar system formed. The planets are simply the consolidated debris, drawn together by gravitational attraction, of our solar system. Every time a comet, asteroid or meteor hits the Earth, it gets a little bigger.