Kara-Kul - Hypervelocity Impact Crater

Alternate Names
Local Language
Coordinates 39° 4' 28" N; 73° 26' 6" E
Notes
  1. Kara-Kul Lake in the Pamir mountains, Tajikistan.
Country Tajikistan
Region Gorno-Badakhshan
Date Confirmed 1993
Notes
  1. Confirmed by brecciation in the central uplift and inner slope of the rim , as well as mosaicism in quartz, and planar elements in quartz, and kink banding in biotite and quartz (Gurov and Gurova, 1993).
Buried? No
Notes
  1. Floor of crater covered by Quaternary unconsolidated sediments.
Drilled? No
Target Type Crystalline
Notes
  1. Metasedimentary rocks and granites.
Sub-Type Granite
Apparent Crater Diameter (km) 52 km
Age (Ma) <60
Notes :
  1. A rough age of <60 Ma is based on the local tectonic history and biostratigraphic constraints (Gurov et al., 1993) (Baratoux et al., 2012).

Method :
  1. Biostratigraphy Tectonic history
Impactor Type Unknown

Advanced Data Fields

Notes

Erosion
4
  1. No ejecta, structure has been glaciated.
Final Rim Diameter
Unknown
Apparent Rim Diameter
52 km
  1. (Gurov et al., 1992)
Rim Reliability Index
3
  1. Island and peninsula in Kara-Kul Lake are a central uplift. Circular depression with a flat floor and uplifted rim.
Crater Morphology
Complex
Central Uplift Diameter
km
Central Uplift Height
300 m
Uplift Reliability Index
Structural Uplift
Unknown
Thickness of Seds
Target Age
Palaeozoic
Marine
No
Impactor Type
Other Shock Metamorphism
Planar features
  1. Planar elements orientation in quartz from north-western part of Karakul depression, photomicrograph, histogram (Fig 2, Fig 3) (Gurov et al., 1993).
Shatter Cones
No
  1. CHECK GUROV ET AL. 1993 AND GUROV AD GUROVA 1993; MAYBE YES (Bartoux et al., 2012).
Planar Fractures
No
  1. See "Other
Planar Deformation Features
Yes
  1. PDF in quartz with recorded shock pressures of 15-17 GPa (Gurov et al., 1992).
Diaplectic Glass
No
Coesite
No
Stisovite
No
Crater Fill
LB
  1. (Gurov et al., 1993) reported breccias only in the central uplift. They did not observe impactites (referring to specifically to "suevites" and lithic breccias) any other place inside the structure. (Baratoux et al., 2012) revisited the site and reported breccias on the central island and in the northern part of the rim. These breccias are not described.
Proximal Ejecta
Distal Ejecta
Dykes
Volume of Melt
Depth of Melting

References

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F Hoerz, R Ostertag (1983) Bunte breccia of the Ries: Continuous deposits of large impact craters, Reviews of Geophysics and Space Physics 21, p. 1667-1725, Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, TX, url

E P Gurov (1988) The Kara-Kul lake depression in the Pamirs-A probable astrobleme, Eighth Soviet-American Microsymposium, p. 37-39

C Koeberl, V L Sharpton, A V Murali, K Burke (1990) Kara and Ust-Kara impact structures (USSR) and their relevance to the K/T boundary event, Geology (Boulder) 18(1), p. 50-53, Geological Society of America (GSA), Boulder, CO, url, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/0091-7613(1990)018<0050:KAUKIS>2.3.CO;2

E P Gurov, E P Gurova, R B Rakitskaya, A Y Yamnichenko (1992) The Karakul depression in the Pamirs: The first impact structure in central Asia, The Karakul Depression in the Pamirs; the first impact structure in central Asia, p. 39, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev, url

E P Gurov, E P Gurova (1993) The Karakul depression in the Pamirs: A reliable impact structure, Geologicheskii zhurnal 6, p. 53-64, url