[meteorite-list] impact crater? (Dnieper-Donets Basin)

From: Paul H. <oxytropidoceras_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2011 12:39:37 -0500
Message-ID: <20110625133937.S7K6Q.893175.imail_at_eastrmwml48>

in "impact crater?" at
http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/meteorite-list/2011-June/077652.html
Robert wrote:

"Thought some of you might like this...
When I first saw the illustration from this article:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2011/3051/pdf/fs2011-3051.pdf
on the top of the page at http://geology.com/news/
I thought, 'nice cross section... which unexposed crater
made the news?' I'd love to see some chip samples from
near the center."

The USGS publication cited above is

Klett, T. R., C. J. Schenk, R. R. Charpentier, M. E. Brownfield,
J. K. Pitman, R. M. Pollastro, T. A. Cook, and M. E. Tennyson,
2011, Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources
of the Dnieper?Donets Basin Province and Pripyat Basin
Province, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, 2010. World
Petroleum Resources Project Fact Sheet 2011-3051.
United States Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia.

Looking at figure 1 of the above fact sheet, the Dnieper-
Donets Basin that is just less than 1400 kilometers long
and about 200 to less than 100 kilometers wide. Its general
morphology alone argues against it being of impact origin.
The cross-section of Dnieper?Donets Basin shown in
figure 2 of the above fact sheet is typical of numerous
basins of terrestrial, non-impact origin. There nothing
about it that argues for any sort of impact origin.

The geology of the Dnieper-Donets Basin is well known
and very well documented. It is an intracratonic rift basin
that opened in Late Devonian (middle Frasnian) as the
result of the clockwise rotation of the Ukrainian shield
relative to other parts of the Russian craton. It is
characterized by linear bounding faults, substantial
crustal thinning, syn-rift volcanic activity and other
geological features that are typical of rift basins (Chekunov
et al. 1992, 1993; Ilchenko 1996, Starostenko et al. 1999;
Stephenson et al. 2006; Ulmishek 2001; Wilson and
Lyashkevich 1996). There exists more than enough
interpretations and data to demonstrate that the Dnieper-
Donets Basin cannot be any sort of impact crater.

References Cited:

Chekunov, A. V., V. K. Garvish, R. I. Kutas and L. I. Ryabchun,
1992, Dnieper-Donets palaeorift. Tectonophysics. vol. 208,
no. 1-3, pp. 257-272.

Chekunov, A. V., L. T. Kaluzhnaya, and L. I., Ryabchun, 1993,
The Dnieper-Donets Paleorift, Ukraine: deep structure and
hydrocarbon accumulations. Journal of Petroleum Geology.
vol. 16, pp. 183-196.

Ilchenko, T., 1996, The Dniepr-Donets Rift: deep structure
and evolution from DSS profiling. Tectonophysics. vol. 268,
pp. 83-98.

Starostenko, V. I., V. A. Danilenko, D. B. Vengrovitch, R. I. Kutas,
S. .M. Stovba, R. A. Stephenson, and O.M. Kharitonov, 1999,
A new geodynamical?thermal model of rift evolution, with
application to the Dnieper?Donets Basin, Ukraine. Tectonophysics.
vol. 313, pp. 29?40

Stephenson, R., T. Yegorova, M-F. Brunet, V. Starostenko,
and S. Stovba, 2006, Late Palaeozoic (rift) basins of the East
European Craton, in: R. A. Stephenson and D .G. Gee, eds,
pp.3463-479, European Lithosphere Dynamics. Memoir
no. 32, Geological Society of London, London, United Kingdom.
ftp://pangea.stanford.edu/pub/sklemp/NGRI/Stephenson.DnieperDonets.GeolSocMem.2006.pdf
http://www.falw.vu/~ster/pdf%20files%20of%20my%20ELD%20papers/Stephenson%20et%20al.pdf

Ulmishek, G. F., 2001, Petroleum Geology and Resources
of the Dnieper-Donets Basin, Ukraine and Russia. Bulletin
no. 2201, United States Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/2201/E/
http://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/2201/E/b2201-e.pdf

Wilson, M., and Z. M. Lyashkevich, 1996. Magmatism and
the geodynamics of rifting of the Pripyat-Dniepr-Donets
rift, East European Platform. Tectonophysics. vol. 268,
pp. 65-81.

Yours,

Paul H.
Received on Sat 25 Jun 2011 01:39:37 PM PDT