Connolly Basin - Hypervelocity Impact Crater

Alternate Names Connolly
Local Language
Coordinates 23° 32' 15" S; 124° 45' 30" E
Notes
  1. In the northern part of Gibson desert.
Country Australia
Region Western Australia
Date Confirmed 1991
Notes
  1. Prior to 1991, Connolly Basin was a probable impact site based on geophysical surveys. Shocked quartz data confirms this site as having an impact origin (Miura et al., 1991).
Buried? No
Notes
  1. Crater filled by sands (Shoemaker et al., 1989).
Drilled? No
Target Type Sedimentary
Notes
  1. Shales and sandstones. Target not well constrained.
Sub-Type Sandstone, Shale
Apparent Crater Diameter (km) 9 km
Age (Ma) 23 - 66
Notes :
  1. 23-66 Ma based on stratigraphic age constraints (Shoemaker and Shoemaker, 1986). Previous work suggests a Cretaceous to early Tertiary (Palaeogene) age (Shoemaker and Shoemaker, 1985).

Method :
  1. Stratigraphy
Impactor Type Unknown

Advanced Data Fields

Notes

Erosion
6
  1. Strongly eroded, shallow crater in the Gibson desert. Rim exposure is "subdued" (Shoemaker, 1986). Rim is breached to the southwest.
Final Rim Diameter
Unknown
Apparent Rim Diameter
9 km
  1. Structural uplift based on geophysics (Shoemaker and Shoemaker, 1985).
Rim Reliability Index
2
  1. Central uplift ~1 km in diameter (Shoemaker and Shoemaker, 1985). "The rocks exposed in the central uplift are provisionally assigned to the Patterson Formation of Early Permian age, or possibly they could correlate with the Grant Group of the Canning Basin section" (Shoemaker et al., 2001). Also, in (Shoemaker and Shoemaker, 1989): "As the Samuel Formation is the bedrock unit nearest the surface over a broad area in the vicinity of the basin, and is estimated to be only about 30m thick [see citation 2 of paper], structural uplift of the basin rim [emphasis added] cannot exceed about 30m.
Crater Morphology
Complex
Central Uplift Diameter
~1km
Central Uplift Height
Unknown
Uplift Reliability Index
4
Structural Uplift
500 m
Thickness of Seds
Target Age
Mesozoic
Marine
No
Impactor Type
Other Shock Metamorphism
No
  1. The ledge-forming sandstone is a resistant medium to coarse grained sandstone with local stringers of coarse sandstone and very rare conglomerates. It is pervasively crushed with shear planes and veinlets of crushed rock. On a microscopic scale, the quartz grains are fractured and lie within a matrix of fine to very fine splintered grains," (Shoemaker and Shoemaker, 2001).
Shatter Cones
No
Planar Fractures
No
Planar Deformation Features
No
Diaplectic Glass
No
Coesite
No
Stisovite
No
Crater Fill
LB
  1. Breccia occurs within the central uplift; at least four different types are observed but difficult to distinguish. (Shoemaker et al., 2001). Parauthocthonous basement rocks? "Crater ejecta deposits evidently have been entirely removed by erosion" (Shoemaker and Shoemaker, 1989). The structure is deeply eroded. Crater-fill breccias have been inferred from gravity modelling (Shoemaker et al., 2001).
Proximal Ejecta
Distal Ejecta
Dykes
Volume of Melt
Depth of Melting

References

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E M Shoemaker, C S Shoemaker (1985) Impact structures of Western Australia, Meteoritics 20(4), Carleton B Moore (ed.), p. 754-756, Arizona State University, Center for Meteorite Studies, Tempe, AZ, url

E M Shoemaker, C S Shoemaker (1989) Geology of the Connolly Basin impact structure, Western Australia, p. 1008-1009

P Lee (1993) Briny lakes on early Mars? Terrestrial intracrater playas and martian candidates, LPI Technical Report 93-03, Par, S Squyres, J Kasting (ed.), p. 17, Houston, TX, United States (USA): Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, TX, url

J B Plescia (1993) Gravity investigations of terrestrial impact craters, Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union 74(43, Suppl.), p. 387, American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC, url

J F McHone, C S Shoemaker, D J Roddy (2000) Connolly Basin impact structure observed by SIR-C/X-SAR shuttleborne imaging radar over Western Australia, Meteoritics & Planetary Science 35(5, Suppl.), Derek W G Sears, Richard P Binzel, Michael J Gaffey, Urs Kraehenbuehl, Carle M Pieters, Denis Shaw, Rainer Wieler, Donald E Brownlee, Joseph I Goldstein, Ian C Lyon, Scott A Sandford, S Ross Taylor, Ernst Zinner, Pat Cassen, Richard A F Grieve, David W Mittlefehldt, Ludolf Schultz, Paul H Warren, Alexander Deutsch, William Hartmann, Hiroko Nagahara, Edward R D Scott, George W Wetherill (ed.), p. 106, Meteoritical Society, Fayetteville, AR, url

J F McHone, K K Williams, C S Shoemaker, D J Roddy (2001) Space shuttle radar images; Connolly Basin impact site, Western Australia, Abstracts of Papers Submitted to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 32, p. abstr. no. 2065, Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, TX, url

J B Plescia, E M Shoemaker, C S Shoemaker (2001) Connolly Basin, Western Australia; total magnetic field survey, Abstracts of Papers Submitted to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 32, p. Abstract no. 1217, Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, TX, url

E M Shoemaker, J B Plescia, C S Shoemaker (2001) Connolly Basin impact structure, Western Australia, Abstracts of Papers Submitted to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 32, p. Abstract no. 1311, Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, TX, url

P W Haines (2005) Impact Cratering and distal ejecta: the Australian record, Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 52(4-5), p. 481-507