Yilan - Hypervelocity Impact Crater

Alternate Names N/A
Coordinates 46° 22' 48" N; 129° 18' 36" E
Notes
  1. Located in the Yilan County of Heilongjiang Province in NE China.
Country China
Region Heilongjiang
Date Confirmed 2020
Notes
  1. Confirmed by the presence of PDFs in quartz grains from crater-fill (Chen et al., 2020).
Buried? No
Drilled? Yes
Notes
  1. A core was drilled through crater-fill into granite basement; total depth: 438m (Chen et al., 2021).
Target Type Crystalline
Notes
  1. Bedrock consists of Cretaceous alkaline-feldspar granite. Quaternary lacustrine deposits consisting of clay-silt, sandy clay, and fine gravel overlie crater-fill breccias (Chen et al., 2020).
Sub-Type Granite
Apparent Crater Diameter (km) Unknown
Age (Ma) 0.0493 ± 0.0032
Notes :
  1. Charcoal found in drill core and the lowest crater-fill sediments date crater to 0.0493 ± 0.0032 Ma (Chen et al., 2021). Additional age constraints: Age of the Cretaceous bedrock (<65 Ma) and the disappearance of crater lake between 11.14 and 8.34 ka based on 14C measurements (Chen et al., 2020).

Method :
  1. Carbon-14 Stratigraphy
Impactor Type Unknown

Advanced Data Fields

Notes

Local Language
Quanshan (Chen et al., 2021)
Erosion
3
  1. One third of the southern rim has been eroded but otherwise rim is well-preserved (Chen et al., 2020).
Final Rim Diameter
1.85 km
Apparent Rim Diameter
Unknown
  1. Crater has a rim-to-rim diamter of 1.85 km (Chen et al., 2020).
Rim Reliability Index
1
  1. The bowl-shaped structure has a crater rim raised 70-120 m above the surrounding terrain (Chen et al., 2020). The maximum rim elevation above the bowl-shaped crater floor is 150m. The rim rises 110-150 m above the surrounding terrain (Chen et al., 2021).
Crater Morphology
Simple
Central Uplift Diameter
Unknown
Central Uplift Height
Unknown
Uplift Reliability Index
Unknown
Structural Uplift
Unknown
Thickness of Seds
Unknown
Target Age
Mesozoic Cenozoic
Marine
No
Impactor Type
Unknown
Other Shock Metamorphism
No
Shatter Cones
No
Planar Fractures
No
Planar Deformation Features
Yes
  1. Quartz grains with multiple sets of PDFs were identified (Chen et al., 2020). See also (Chen et al., 2021)
Diaplectic Glass
No
Coesite
Yes
  1. Abundant coesite in fine-grained granite clasts below 237m (Chen et al., 2021).
Stisovite
No
Crater Fill
LB, MB, G
  1. Lithic breccia consisting of granite found within crater rim and as crater-fill deposits (Chen et al., 2020). Granite melt clasts, vesicular glass, and teardrop-shaped glass particles found in drill core (Chen et al., 2021).
Proximal Ejecta
Unknown
Distal Ejecta
Unknown
Dykes
Unknown
Volume of Melt
Unknown
Depth of Melting
Unknown

References

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D Tan, M Chen, X Xie, W Xiao (2019) Yilan crater, a newly identified impact structure in northeast China, Chinese Science Bulletin 65(10), p. 948-954, doi:10.1360/TB-2019-0704

M Chen, C Koeberl, D Tan, P Ding, W Xiao, N Wang, Y Chen, X Xie, U Reimold (2021) Yilan crater, China: evidence for an origin by meteorite impact, Meteoritics & Planetary Science 56(7), url, doi:10.1111/maps.13711

Yangfan Deng, Samuel Bignardi, Zhou Zhang, Zhigang Peng, Cheng Xiong, Sheng Zhu, Jixiao Ma, Mianshui Rong, Ming Chen (2025) Subsurface structure and impact process of Yilan Crater, northeastern China, Communications Earth & Environment 6(1), p. 301, url, doi:10.1038/s43247-025-02274-5