Holleford - Hypervelocity Impact Crater

Alternate Names
Local Language
Coordinates 44° 27' 36" N; 76° 37' 55" W
Notes
  1. 27 km NW of Kingston in S Ontario, 132 km SW of Ottawa.
Country Canada
Region Ontario
Date Confirmed 1963
Notes
  1. Suggested to be of impact origin based on air photos (Beals et al., 1956). First shock evidence was coesite and PFs (Bunch and Cohen, 1963).
Buried? Yes
Notes
  1. Approximately 250 m of Ordovician limestone and shale of the Black River and Rideau groups lie unconformably over the Precambrian country rock (Gold, 1968).
Drilled? Yes
Notes
  1. Three drill holes at distances of 430, 760, and 1140 m from the centre of the crater to depths of 340, 450, and 135 m, respectively, penetrate breccia (St. John, 1968).
Target Type Crystalline
Notes
  1. Marbles, quartzites, and gneisses of the Grenville series (Gold, 1969).
Sub-Type Gneiss, Marble, Quartzite
Apparent Crater Diameter (km) 2.35 km
Age (Ma) 450 - 650
Notes :
  1. The deposition time of the undisturbed, Potsdam sedimentary (filling complex) has been used to establish the approximate age of 550 ± 100 Ma (Beals, 1960).

Method :
  1. Stratigraphy
Impactor Type Unknown

Advanced Data Fields

Notes

Erosion
4
  1. Glaciation has removed the rim crest; the crater-fill products are preserved (Beals and Hitchen, 1970).
Final Rim Diameter
Unknown
Apparent Rim Diameter
2.35 km
  1. These dimensions are partly based on reconstruction (Gold, 1969) (Beals and Hitchen, 1970).
Rim Reliability Index
2
  1. Inward dipping (saucer-like) beds of limestone and shale overlie Precambrian breccia and fractured country rocks. A cross-sectional diagram can be found in (St. John, 1968). These dimensions are partly based on reconstruction (Gold, 1969) (Beals and Hitchen, 1970).
Crater Morphology
Simple
Central Uplift Diameter
km
Central Uplift Height
Unknown
Uplift Reliability Index
Structural Uplift
Unknown
Thickness of Seds
Target Age
Precambrian
Marine
No
Impactor Type
Other Shock Metamorphism
No
Shatter Cones
No
  1. No shatter cones (Bunch and Cohen, 1963).
Planar Fractures
Yes
  1. Shattered quartz in the coesite-bearing samples exhibits planar fractures (Bunch and Cohen, 1963).
Planar Deformation Features
Yes
  1. PDF in quartz grains (Bunch, 1968) (Robertson et al., 1968).
Diaplectic Glass
No
Coesite
Yes
  1. Possible coesite in brecciated basement gneiss (Bunch and Cohen, 1963).
Stisovite
No
Crater Fill
LB
  1. Polymict lithic breccias reported by (Beals, 1960) (Dawson, 1961). No glass found. Maximum depth of crater to basement is given, but not depth of melting: 800m (Andriuex et al., 2011).
Proximal Ejecta
Distal Ejecta
Dykes
Volume of Melt
Depth of Melting

References

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A M Bancroft (1960) Gravity anomalies over a buried step [Ontario], Journal of Geophysical Research 65(5), p. 1630-1631, American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC, url

C S Beals (1960) A probable meteorite crater of Precambrian age at Holleford, Ontario, Publications of the Dominion Observatory, Ottawa 24(6), p. 117-142, Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, Observatories Branch, Ottawa

K R Dawson (1961) The origin of the Holleford Crater breccia, The Canadian Mineralogist 6, Part 5, p. 634-646, Mineralogical Association of Canada, Ottawa, ON, url

J H Hodgson (1962) The Upper Mantle Project, The Canadian Surveyor 16(3), p. 149-158, The Canadian Institute, Ottawa, ON, url

T E Bunch, A J Cohen (1963) Coesite and shocked quartz from Holleford Crater, Ontario, Canada, Science 142(3590), p. 379-381, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, DC, url

E Saint John Brian (1968) Paleolacustrine arenites in the Holleford meteorite crater, Ontario, Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences = Revue Canadienne des Sciences de la Terre 5(4), p. 935-943, National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, ON, url, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/e68-090

D P Gold (1969) Structural studies around the Holleford crater, Ontario, Special Paper - Geological Society of America, p. 349-350, Geological Society of America (GSA), Boulder, CO

P Andrieux, J F Clark (1969) Application des methodes electriques de prospection a l'etude du cratere d'Holleford, Canadian Jour. Earth Sci.; with French abs. 6(6), p. 1325-1337, url

J F Clark (1969) Magnetic profiles at Holleford crater, eastern Ontario, Proceedings of the Geological Association of Canada 20, p. 24-29, Business and Economic Service, Toronto

P B Robertson (1975) Historical plaque marks the Holleford meteorite crater, Geos (Ottawa) 1975, Summ, p. 16-17, Canada Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, Ottawa, ON

Mary-Helen Armour, Joseph I Boyce, Zackary Shulman, David R Zilkey (2024) 3-D geophysical modeling of a buried, simple impact crater: Holleford impact structure, Ontario, Canada, Meteoritics & Planetary Science 59(1), p. 171-192, url, doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.14113