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The Yarrabubba impact structure is the eroded remnant of an impact crater, situated in the northern Yilgarn Craton near Yarrabubba Station between the towns of Sandstone and Meekatharra, Mid West Western Australia. [2] [3] With an age of 2.229 billion years, it is the oldest known impact structure on Earth. [1]
Researchers have determined that the 45-mile-wide (70-km-wide) Yarrabubba crater in Australia formed when an asteroid struck Earth just over 2.2 billion years ago.
Yarrabubba shares a boundary with Cogla Downs Station. [1] The Yarrabubba impact structure, which takes its name from the property, is found on the margins of the station. [2] The property was advertised for sale in 1906. At this time it occupied an area of 294,000 acres (118,978 ha) and was stocked with 100 head of cattle.
The Murchison Province contains the Yarrabubba crater, which is the oldest dated meteorite impact crater, at 2229 ± 5 Ma. The crater is heavily eroded and no surface expression remains of the original structure.
It is accessed via the Tanami Road 150 km (93 mi) south of the town of Halls Creek.The crater is central to the Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater National Park. [3]The crater averages about 875 metres (2,871 ft) in diameter, 60 metres (200 ft) from rim to present crater floor. [3]
The following structures are officially considered "unconfirmed" because they are not listed in the Earth Impact Database. Due to stringent requirements regarding evidence and peer-reviewed publication, newly discovered craters or those with difficulty collecting evidence generally are known for some time before becoming listed.
Less than ten thousand years old, and with a diameter of 100 m (330 ft) or more. The EID lists fewer than ten such craters, and the largest in the last 100,000 years (100 ka) is the 4.5 km (2.8 mi) Rio Cuarto crater in Argentina. [2]
This result establishes Yarrabubba as the oldest recognised meteorite impact structure on Earth, extending the terrestrial cratering record back >200 million years. The age of Yarrabubba coincides, within uncertainty, with temporal constraint for the youngest Palaeoproterozoic glacial deposits, the Rietfontein diamictite in South Africa.