Henbury - Impact Crater

Alternate Names
Local Language Tatyeye Kepmwere (Hamacher and Goldsmith, 2013). The Arrernte name for the crater field is Tateye Kepmwere (Tatjakapara). The Aborigines referred to the craters as chindu china aru chingi yabu which roughly translates to "sun walk fire devil rock" (
Coordinates 24° 34' 19" S; 133° 8' 53" E
Notes
  1. A cluster of 15 craters is located 130 km S of Alice Spring.
Country Australia
Region Northern Territory
Date Confirmed 1932
Notes
  1. Confirmed by recovered meteorite impactor fragments throughout the crater field (Alderman, 1932).
Buried? No
Notes
  1. Some craters are now sediment filled basins (Milton, 1968). Most have been partially filled by alluvium.
Drilled? No
Target Type Sedimentary
Notes
  1. Craters 1 through 8 are excavated in soft subgreywacke sediments. Craters 10 through 13 formed in quarztites (Compston and Taylor, 1969). These beds are of Upper Proterozoic age.
Sub-Type Subgreywacke
Apparent Crater Diameter (km) 146 m
Age (Ma) 0.0042 ± 0.0019
Notes :
  1. An age of 4200 ± 1900 years was determined by fission track (Storzer and Wagner, 1977). Additional age constraints: (Storzer, 1971) gives <0.01 from impact glass by Fission Track. An age of <4700 years has been given based on the cosmogenic 14C content of the meteorite (Kohman and Goel, 1963).

Method :
  1. Fission track
Impactor Type Iron, IIIAB
Notes
  1. Craters formed by an iron meteorite shower (Compston and Taylor, 1969) (Gibbons et al., 1976). IIIAB octahedrite. Meteorites recovered.

Advanced Data Fields

Notes

Erosion
2
  1. The craters have not suffered extensive erosion due to low rainfall in the area (Hodge and Wright, 1971).
Final Rim Diameter
146 m
Maximum Crater Size
146 m
Number of Craters
12
Rim Reliability Index
1
  1. At least 13 craters in field, however, (Kenkmann et al., 2018) notes 12. There are 13 or 14 craters that most agree on but up to 15 craters have been suggested (Hodge and Wright, 1971) (Haines et al., 2005). See also summary table in (Kenkmann et al., 2018). Dimensions are for the largest crater, 7a (Milton, 1968). Diameters are 24 m (#1), 27 m (#2), 52-70 m (#3), 58-67 m (#4), 17 m (#5), 85-98 m (#6), 146 m (#7a), 118 (#7b), 70 m (#8), 24-30 m (#10), 14 m (#11), 24-29 m (#12), 6 m (#13). Crater 7 consists of 2 overlapping craters with longest combined oval diameter of 183 m and crater 9 is not listed as it is a doubtful crater and more likely a depression (Milton, 1968).
Thickness of Seds
Target Age
Precambrian
Marine
No

References

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A R Alderman (1932) The meteorite craters at Henbury, central Australia, with addendum by L. J. Spencer, Mineralogical magazine and journal of the Mineralogical Society 23(136), p. 19-32, url, doi:10.1180/minmag.1932.023.136.04

J M Rayner (1938) The Henbury meteorite craters and geophysical prospecting, Australian Journal of Science 1(3), p. 93-94, Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS), Sydney, N.S.W.

J M Rayner (1939) Geophysical report on the Henbury meteorite craters, Central Australia, Australia, Aerial, Geol. & Geophys Surv. N. Australia, Rept. Northern Territory 42, p. 7

J M Rayner (1939) Examination of the Henbury meteorite craters [Central Australia] by the methods of applied geophysics, Report of the Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, p. 72-78, Australian and New Zeland Association for the Advancement of Science, Sydney

C T Hardy (1954) Major craters attributed to meteoritic impact, Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists 38(5), p. 917-923, American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Tulsa, OK, url

P S Goel, T P Kohman (1962) Cosmogenic carbon-14 in meteorites and terrestrial ages of 'finds' and craters, Science 136(3519), p. 875-876, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, DC, url

S R Taylor, P Kolbe (1964) Henbury impact glass: Parent material and behaviour of volatile elements during melting, Nature (London) 203(4943), p. 390-391, Macmillan Journals, London, url

D J Milton, F C Michel (1965) Structure of a ray crater at Henbury, Northern Territory, Australia, Geological survey research 1965, p. c5-c11

D J Milton (1965) Structural geology of the larger Henbury craters, Annual Progress Report, U. S. Geological Survey, Astrogeological Studies 1964-65, P, p. 26-49, U. S. Geological Survey, Washington, DC

S R Taylor (1966) Australites, henbury impact glass and subgreywacke: A comparison of the abundances of 51 elements, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 30(11), p. 1121-1136, Pergamon, Oxford, url

J T Wasson (1967) Differences of composition among Australian iron meteorites, Nature (London) 216(5118), p. 880, Macmillan Journals, London, url

S R Taylor (1967) Composition of meteorite impact glass across the Henbury strewnfield, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 31(6), p. 961-968, Pergamon, Oxford, url

D J Milton (1968) Structure of the Henbury meteorite craters, Australia, Shock metamorphism of natural materials, Bevan French, Nicholas M Short (ed.)

D J Milton (1968) Structural geology of the Henbury meteorite craters, Northern Territory, Australia, U. S. Geological Survey Professional Paper, p. C1-C17, U. S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA, url

A E Goresy, H Fechtig, J Ottemann (1968) The opaque minerals in impactite glasses, Shock metamorphism of natural materials, Bevan French, Nicholas M Short (ed.)

W Compston, S R Taylor (1969) Rb/Sr study of impact glass and country rocks from the Henbury meteorite crater field, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 33(9), p. 1037-1043, Pergamon, Oxford, url

W D Ehmann, J W Morgan (1970) Twin terrestrial impact craters, Nature (London) 225(5229), p. 255, Macmillan Journals, London, url

P W Hodge, F W Wright (1970) Meteoritic spherules in the soil surrounding terrestrial impact craters, Nature (London) 225(5234), p. 717-718, Macmillan Journals, London, url

P W Hodge, F W Wright (1971) Meteoritic particles in the soil surrounding the Henbury meteorite craters, Journal of Geophysical Research 76(17), p. 3880-3895, American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC, url

S R Taylor, S H HcLennan (1975) Australia's Henbury craters, Sky and Telescope 49(5), p. 287-290, Sky Publishing, Cambridge, MA

D McColl (1990) Distribution and sculpturing of iron meteorites from the major craters at Henbury, Meteoritics 25(4), p. 384, Arizona State University, Center for Meteorite Studies, Tempe, AZ, url

Y Ding, D R Veblen (2004) Impactite from Henbury, Australia, American Mineralogist 89(7), p. 961-968, Mineralogical Society of America, Washington, DC, url

E Rudnickaite (2006) Vilniaus universiteto geologijos ir mineralogijos muziejaus meteoritu kolekcija, Geologijos Akiraciai 2006(3), p. 51-60, The Geological Society of Lithuania, Vilnius, url

N J F Blamey, M B E Boslough, H Newsom, J Parnell (2010) Quantitative fluid inclusion gas analysis of airburst, nuclear, impact, and fulgurite glasses, Abstracts with Programs - Geological Society of America 42(5), p. 305, Geological Society of America (GSA), Boulder, CO, url