Fact
Geography: Wolf
Creek, WA has the largest meteorite crater in Australia, 853.44m diameter and 61m deep
We might have to get the ruler out again
Gosses
Bluff is located west of
Alice Springs and south of the Macdonnell Ranges, in the arid Missionary Plain in the Northern Territory.
The bluff itself is a circular ring of hills 5km in diameter and 200m high, in the centre of a crater. It was formed 142 million years ago
The Tookoonooka crater in south central Queensland is about 55km in diameter. It was discovered in the early 1980s when petroleum exploration revealed an anomalous circular structure. Tookoonooka has a central uplift dome that is 22km in diameter.
The Bedout structure 300km west of
Broome, in the Canning Basin off the coast of Western Australia, has been sited as one of the possible impacts that contributed to one of the greatest extinction events known. At the end of the Permian Period, around 250 MYA, it has been estimated that more than 90% of marine species, and 70% of terrestrial species, may have become extinct. The extinction event seems to have been a sudden, global occurrance, lasting less than a million years (which in geological terms is very rapid).
The Bedout structure (pronounced "Bedoo") has a central uplift of around 40km in diamater, with a transient crater size of around 100km diameter. The original crater probably measured around 200km in diameter in total, comparable to the Chicxulub crater in Mexico which may have contributed to the extinction of (non-avian) dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Period.
The Woodleigh crater was found on Woodleigh Station, east of
Shark Bay in Western Australia.
The crater may be up to 120km in diameter, although some estimates are closer to 40km. The larger estimate suggests a bolide (asteroid or
comet) 5km in diameter, which would make this the fourth largest impact structure in the world. However, a study presented at the Geological Society of America's 38th Annual Meeting in 2003 suggests a diameter closer to 60km.
The impact structure is entirely underground. The central uplift structure 20km in diameter was first detected by drilling activities in the late 1970s, however its significance as an impact structure was only realised in 1997 during a gravity survey.