Dalgaranga - Impact Crater

Alternate Names
Local Language
Coordinates 27° 38' 6" S; 117° 17' 20" E
Notes
  1. Near Mount Magnet, Western Australia.
Country Australia
Region Western Australia
Date Confirmed 1938
Notes
  1. Idenfication of projectile component (Simpson, 1938). Possible fall witnessed in 1930 but never confirmed. (Hamaher and Goldsmith 2013) say that \"An Aboriginal stockman named Billy Seward discovered the crater in 1921 (Wellard ,1983: 95-97). Seward informed the station manager, G.E.P. Wellard, who returned to the site and found meteorite fragments in the area (ibid: 94-96)\". They also mention the fall could have been vitnessed by Aboriginal Australians - pieces of Dalgaranga meteorite were found >200 km from impact site - most probably transported by people. Projectile fragments collected in 1930\'s and confirmed as meteorites in 1938 by Simpson (Simpson, 1938). See also Hamacher and O\'neill, 2013 and Fazio et al., 2014. Possible PDFs but unconfirmed.
Buried? No
Notes
  1. Soil and rubble form the infill material (Mccall, 1965).
Drilled? No
Target Type Crystalline
Notes
  1. Granite and laterite.
Sub-Type Laterite, Granite
Apparent Crater Diameter (km) 24 m
Age (Ma) <0.003?
Notes :
  1. A rough estimate of <0.003 Ma was provided by the preservation of crater morphology and stratigraphic age constraints (Shoemaker and Shoemaker, 1988). Other work using the 10Be-26Al exposure age estimated 0.27 Ma (Shoemaker et al., 1990). The age is very uncertain. I would just post it as \"?\".

Method :
  1. Stratigraphy and morphology
Impactor Type Mesosiderite, A
Notes
  1. Fragments of ferruginous materials have been examined and reveal a composition of a stony iron, mesosiderite (McCall, 1965). Meteorites recovered.

Advanced Data Fields

Notes

Erosion
2
  1. The structure is well preserved, some ejecta still present (McCall, 1965).
Final Rim Diameter
24 m
Maximum Crater Size
24 m
Number of Craters
1
Rim Reliability Index
1
  1. Consists of a pit or fragmentation crater (not an explosion crater), 21 m in diameter (McCall, 1965).
Thickness of Seds
Target Age
Precambrian
Marine
No

References

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D W Hamacher, C O’Neill (2013) The discovery and history of the Dalgaranga meteorite crater, Western Australia, Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 60(5), p. 637-646, url, doi:10.1080/08120099.2013.815274