Gardnos - Hypervelocity Impact Crater

Alternate Names
Local Language
Coordinates 60° 38' 27" N; 9° 0' 14" E
Notes
  1. S central Norway, 9 km N of the village of Nesbyen, Buskerud County, Norway.
Country Norway
Region Buskerud
Date Confirmed 1992
Notes
  1. Confirmed by multiple suites of breccias, suevite, planar features in quartz and feldspar, biotite kinking (Dons and Naterstad, 1992).
Buried? No
Notes
  1. Late Quaternary moraines and fluvio-glacial deposits cover much of the crater (Dons and Naterstad, 1992).
Drilled? No
Target Type Crystalline
Notes
  1. Proterozoic granitic gneisses.
Sub-Type Gneiss
Apparent Crater Diameter (km) 5 km
Age (Ma) 546 ± 5
Notes :
  1. 546 ± 5 Ma determined using U-Pb of zircon in clast-rich impact melt rock (Kalleson et al., 2009). Fossil evidence in the crater-fill indicate Cambrian-Ordovician age of 500 ± 10 Ma (Dons and Naterstad, 1992).

Method :
  1. U-Pb
Impactor Type Unknown
Notes
  1. Re-Os isotopic analyses show presence of meteoritic component in impact melt breccias (French et al., 1995).

Advanced Data Fields

Notes

Erosion
5
  1. "The original crater rim is no longer visible, ejecta deposits outside the crater have been removed, and the internal crater-fill breccia deposits have been significantly eroded over more than half the area of the original structure" (Dons and Naterstad, 1992). Crater cut by a valley; interior section is exposed. Crater-fill, overlying breccia lens, autochthonous breccia and basement (Dons and Naterstad, 1992).
Final Rim Diameter
Unknown
Apparent Rim Diameter
5 km
  1. Diameter 4-5 km (Dons and Naterstad, 1992). Due to deep erosion, the structure does not exhibit a clear circular topographic expression. It is defined based on a roughly 5 km in diameter circular feature. The outer limits of this feature is not well defined (Dons and Naterstad, 1992).
Rim Reliability Index
3
  1. Area has been tectonized by Caledonian orogeny (Dons and Naterstad, 1992). Exposed central uplift is about 400m in diameter. Height is currently about 79m above the inferred crater floor. May have been twice this or more. See (French et al., 1997), esp. Fig 3. (French et al., 1997) estimate Stratigraphic Uplift at 350m; rocks exposed on the Central Uplift are estimated to have originally been at 200m elev.
Crater Morphology
Complex
Central Uplift Diameter
0.4km
Central Uplift Height
79 m
Uplift Reliability Index
3
Structural Uplift
Unknown
Thickness of Seds
Target Age
Precambrian Palaeozoic
Marine
No
Impactor Type
  1. Re-Os isotopic analyses show presence of meteoritic component in impact melt breccias (French et al., 1995).
Other Shock Metamorphism
Maskelynite
  1. (French et al., 1995)
Shatter Cones
No
  1. No shatter cones reported (French et al., 1995). Only shattered surfaces in the central part of the structure but no shatter cones (Dypvik, pers. comm., 2010).
Planar Fractures
No
  1. Did not find in literature.
Planar Deformation Features
Yes
  1. PDF in quartz (omega), (French et al., 1995) (French et al., 1997) and feldspar grains (Dons and Naterstad, 1992).
Diaplectic Glass
No
  1. Did not find in literature.
Coesite
No
  1. Did not find in literature.
Stisovite
No
  1. Did not find in literature.
Crater Fill
LB, MB, M
  1. Crater-fill lithic breccias that consist of fragments of granitic gneiss in a black clastic matrix; melt-bearing breccias (suevite) with glass and basement rock fragments in a clastic matrix; and a breccia with a matrix composed of melt (melt rock) (French et al., 1997) (Gilmour et al., 2003). Volume of melt estimated by (French et al., 1997). (French et al., 1997) also suggest ~3m depth of melt layer initially and gives 6 x 10^-2 km3 as value in the abstract. Crater highly eroded and slightly metamorphosed (French et al., 1997). Exposures of central uplift, suevites, and breccias. Dykes of melt-bearing breccias intrude the autochthonous lithic breccias, and isolated enclaves of lithic breccias occur within the melt-bearing breccias; (Lindgren, 2007).
Proximal Ejecta
Distal Ejecta
Dykes
MB
Volume of Melt
5 x 10-2 km3
Depth of Melting

References

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J A Dons, J Naterstad (1992) The Gardnos impact structure, Norway, Meteoritics 27(3), p. 215, Arizona State University, Center for Meteorite Studies, Tempe, AZ, url

J A Grier, T D Swindle, D A Kring, H J Melosh (1995) Investigation of the Gardnos impact structure: Argon-40/argon-39 results, Meteoritics & Planetary Science 30(5), Derek W G Sears (ed.), p. 513-514, Meteoritical Society, Fayetteville, AR, url

T Andersen, E A J Burke, C Ayora (1996) Methane inclusions in shocked quartz from the Gardnos impact breccia, South Norway, European Journal of Mineralogy 8(5), p. 927-936, Schweizerbart'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung (Naegele u. Obermiller), Stuttgart, pdf

H Henkel (1997) NBCS: The baltic-nordic network for impact crater studies, Large Meteorite Impacts and Planetary Evolution II 38, p. 20, Royal Inst. of Tech., Dept. of Geodesy and Photogrammetry, Stockholm, Sweden: NASA, Suite 1M32, Washington, DC, 20546-0001, USA, [mailto:public-inquiries@hq.nasa.gov], [URL:http://www.nasa.gov], url

B M French, C Koeberl, I Gilmour, S B Shirey, J A Dons, J Naterstad (1997) The Gardnos impact structure, Norway: Petrology and geochemistry of target rocks and impactites, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 61(4), p. 873-904, Pergamon, Oxford, url, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7037(96)00382-1

J A Grier, T D Swindle, D A Kring, H J Melosh (1999) Argon-40/argon-39 analyses of samples from the Gardnos impact structure, Norway, Meteoritics & Planetary Science 34(5), p. 803-807, Meteoritical Society, Fayetteville, AR, url

W S Wolbach, S Widicus, B M French (1999) Carbon-bearing impactites from the Gardnos impact structure, Norway: No evidence for soot, Abstracts of Papers Submitted to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 30, p. 0-abstr. no. 1043, Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, TX, url

J I Abbott (2000) Carbon chemistry of giant impacts, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, p. 0-1, Ann Arbor: Open University (United Kingdom), pdf

I Gilmour, I A Franchi, C Koeberl, B M French (2002) A Raman spectroscopic study of carbon phases in impact melt rocks and breccias from the Gardnos impact structure, Norway, Abstracts of Papers Submitted to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 33, p. 0-Abstract 1623, Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, TX, url

S A Vishnevsky, J Raitala (2003) Native iron, wustite, and magnetite in impactites of Janisjarvi and Gardnos craters (The Baltic Shield), Meteoritics & Planetary Science 38, Suppl.(7 suppl), A J Timothy Jull (ed.), p. 43, Meteoritical Society, Fayetteville, AR, pdf

I Gilmour, B M French, I A Franchi, J I Abbott, R M Hough, J Newton, C Koeberl (2003) Geochemistry of carbonaceous impactites from the Gardnos impact structure, Norway, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 67(20), p. 3889-3903, Pergamon, Oxford, pdf, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7037(03)00213-8

J E Elsila (2004) Astrochemical studies of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and fullerenes, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, p. 186-186 p., Ann Arbor: Stanford University, url

P Lindgren, J Parnell (2005) Liquid immiscibility in suevite melt, Gardnos impact crater, Abstracts of Papers Submitted to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 36, p. 0-1629, Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, TX, url

E Kalleson, H Dypvik, J Naterstad (2005) Sedimentary infill of the Gardnos impact crater: A field report, Abstracts of Papers Submitted to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 36, p. 0-1182, Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, TX, url

E Kalleson, H Dypvik, J Naterstad (2006) Post impact deposits in the Gardnos impact structure, Norway, Bulletin of the Geological Society of Finland Special Is, Petri Peltonen, Antti Pasanen (ed.), p. 64, Geological Society of Finland, Helsinki, url

J Parnell, P Lindgren (2006) Survival of reactive carbon through meteorite impact melting, Geology (Boulder) 34(12), p. 1029-1032, Geological Society of America (GSA), Boulder, CO, url, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/G22731A.1

S Goderis, A T B Roald, E Kalleson, H Dypvik, P Claeys (2006) A non-magmatic iron meteorite as projectile for the Gardnos Crater, Abstracts with Programs - Geological Society of America 38(7), p. 297-298, Geological Society of America (GSA), Boulder, CO, url

T O Jahren (2006) Development of Gardnos impact crater to a visitor centre both for tourists and educational purposes, Bulletin of the Geological Society of Finland Special Is, Petri Peltonen, Antti Pasanen (ed.), p. 59, Geological Society of Finland, Helsinki, url

P Lindgren (2007) The preservation of organic matter in impact craters, PQDT - UK & Ireland, Ann Arbor: University of Aberdeen (United Kingdom), url

A Wright, J Parnell (2007) Interpreting the Raman signature of ureilite carbon, Lunar and Planetary Science XXXVIII, p. 0-1228, Lunar and Planetary Institute, 3600 Bay Area Boulevard, Houston, TX, 77058-1113, USA, [URL:http://www.lpi.usra.edu], url

T O Jahren, E Kalleson, H Dypvik (2008) The Gardnos structure: Preservation and exposure of an old impact crater, International Geological Congress, Abstracts = Congres Geologique International, Resumes 33, p. 0-Abstract 1341413, [International Geological Congress], [location varies], url

E Kalleson, T Jahren, H Dypvik (2008) Impactites from the Gardnos impact structure: Deformation patterns of different target lithologies, International Geological Congress, Abstracts = Congres Geologique International, Resumes 33, p. 0-Abstract 1341268, [International Geological Congress], [location varies], url

E Kalleson, H Dypvik, J Naterstad (2008) Postimpact sediments in the Gardnos impact structure, Norway, Special Paper - Geological Society of America 437, Kevin R Evans, J Wright Horton Jr., David T King Jr., Jared R Morrow (ed.), p. 19-41, Geological Society of America (GSA), Boulder, CO, url, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/2008.2437(02

F Moynier, C Koeberl, G Quitte, P Telouk (2009) A tungsten isotope approach to search for meteoritic components in terrestrial impact rocks, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 286(1-2), p. 35-40, Elsevier, Amsterdam, url, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2009.06.014

E Kalleson, F Corfu, H Dypvik (2009) U/Pb systematics of zircon and titanite from the Gardnos impact structure, Norway: Evidence for impact at 546 Ma?, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 73(10), p. 3077-3092, Elsevier, New York, NY, url, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2009.02.020

E Kalleson (2009) The Gardnos structure: The impactites, sedimentary deposits and post-impact history, DUO Digitale utgivelser ved Universitetet i Oslo, p. i-49, url

S J Jaret, R Chakrabarti, S B Jacobsen, M Patev, E Kalleson, H Dypvik (2010) Re-examination of Gardnos impactites, Abstracts of Papers Submitted to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 41, p. 0-Abstract 2359, Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, TX, pdf

E Kalleson, H Dypvik, O Nilsen (2010) Melt-bearing impactites (suevite and impact melt rock) within the Gardnos structure, Norway, Meteoritics & Planetary Science 45(5), p. 798-827, Meteoritical Society, Fayetteville, AR, url, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1945-5100.2010.01055.x

S J Jaret, R Chakrabarti, G Yu, M I Petaev, S B Jacobsen (2011) Rare earth and trace element geochemistry of impact melts from the Gardnos impact structure, Norway, Abstracts of Papers Submitted to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 42, p. 0-2589, Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, TX, url

S Jaret, S B Jacobsen, M I Petaev (2011) Timing and emplacement of injection dikes at the Gardnos impact structure, Abstracts with Programs - Geological Society of America 43(5), p. 307, Geological Society of America (GSA), Boulder, CO, url