[meteorite-list] australite impact crater?

From: chris sharp <casper_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:25:33 2004
Message-ID: <00a001c30fd2$c43285a0$cd7ddccb_at_ringtail>

Hi Sterling,
thank you for your thoughts, I'll go ahead and purchase Guy's book.

What do you think about the Central Australia crater hypothesis? I
have found out a bit more info since I posted last year.

There are a number of studies looking at the Finke river, which is a
weird name for a river and in fact is a pretty strange river. It
starts out in the middle of Australia and runs out not too far away in
the Simpson desert. To my eyes this river looks like it could be a
crater lake outfall system. The crater itself is huge and has a range
of mountains (The MacDonnell Ranges?) which extend out from the centre
and cut across the crater rim extending out towards the NE.

At first this range seemed to defy an impact origin, but then I ran
across this interesting picture:

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/1yearExtend/crater/E05-01904crater_mosaic25.jpg

which seems to show just such a phenomena.

There is a remote sensing/ground truth calibration project ongoing of
this area:

http://www.csr.utexas.edu/projects/rs/finkeanalysis.html

more than a few good pictures:

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/~gmi196/DrylandRivers/pickup/Finke_River_Gorge.htm
http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/DAAC_DOCS/geomorphology/GEO_1/GEO_PLATE_I-4.HTML

The Finke also has paleomeander systems that defy an easy explanation.
One scenario might be a breakout flood resulting from the collapse of
the crater lake wall. There would be a massive flood and outpouring of
silt/gravels which would clog the existing drainage system.

Would a crater in Central Australia fit the distribution of
Australites?

Could this be the major crater of a series of craters starting from
Tasmania's Savage river and running up into SE Asia?

As an aside, any idea why the moldavites look so different from other
tektites? :}

so many questions,
regards to all
chris sharp
Received on Thu 01 May 2003 07:12:30 AM PDT