Kaalijärv - Impact Crater

Alternate Names Kaali
Local Language Kaali (järv = lake in Estonian)
Coordinates 58° 22' 22" N; 22° 40' 10" E
Notes
  1. The small group of nine craters is located 20 km to the NE of Kingiseppa on the island of Saaremaa, Estonia.
Country Estonia
Region Saare
Date Confirmed 1938
Notes
  1. Discovery of meteoritic iron fragments (Reinwald, 1938 - in German) finally proved the suspected meteoritic origin of the craters (Spencer, 1938).
Buried? No
Notes
  1. Most of the craters are covered with <1.2 m of soil and moraine deposits (Aaloe and Tiirma, 1982).
Drilled? No
Target Type Sedimentary
Notes
  1. In layers of Upper Silurian dolomite (Krinov, 1961) and clayley basal moraine (Tiirmaa, 1992). Silurian dolomite covered by up to a ~5 m of glacial till (Losiak et al., 2016).
Sub-Type Alluvium, Dolomite
Apparent Crater Diameter (km) 110 m
Age (Ma) 0.003237 ± 0.000010
Notes :
  1. Charcoal within the ejecta blanket provide an age of 3237 ± 10 years (Losiak et al., 2016). Additional age constraints: Mollusc shells found in the crater infill suggest approximately 0.004 - 0.005 Ma, based on biostratigraphy (Krinov, 1961). See also Saarse et al. (1990).

Method :
  1. 14C
Impactor Type Iron, IAB

Advanced Data Fields

Notes

Erosion
2
  1. Well preserved, some of the ejecta has been removed due to glaciation (Krinov, 1961).
Final Rim Diameter
110 m
Maximum Crater Size
110 m
Number of Craters
9
Rim Reliability Index
1
  1. 9 craters in field. Diameter is for main crater is 105-110 m and the remaining 8 craters are less than 40 m in diameter; 39 m (#1), 36 m (#2), 33 m (#3), 20 m (#4), 13 m (#5), 26 m (#6), 15 m (#7), and 27 m (#8) (Losiak et al., 2016). Dimension for the largest crater from (Pirrus and Tiirmaa, 1990). See also (Aaloe et al., 1976). The dimension of 6 other craters are listed in paper by (Krinov, 1966). Dimensions of all craters in (Pirrus and Tiirmaa, 1990).
Thickness of Seds
Target Age
Palaeozoic Cenozoic
Marine
No

References

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L J Spencer (1938) The Kaalijärv meteorite from the Estonian craters, Mineralogical Magazine 25(161), p. 75-80, url

I A Reinwald (1938) Der Krater von Sall (Kaali järv)-ein Meteorkrater-Feld in Estland, Natur und Volk 68, p. 16-24

L A Kulik (1940) The meteorite crater Kaalijarv in USSR, Nature (London) 12, p. 63-65, Macmillan Journals, London

E L Krinov (1961) The Kaalijarv meteorite craters on Saarema island, Estonian SSR, American Journal of Science 259(6), p. 430-440, Kline Geology Laboratory, Yale University, New Haven, CT, url

K L Rasmussen, B Aaby, R Gwozdz (2000) The age of the Kaalijarv meteorite craters, Meteoritics & Planetary Science 35(5), p. 1067-1071, Meteoritical Society, Fayetteville, AR, url

A Losiak, E M Wild, W D Geppert, M S Huber, A Jõeleht, A Kriiska, A Kulkov, K Paavel, I Pirkovic, J Plado, P Steier, R Välja, J Wilk, T Wisniowski, M R Zanetti (2016) Dating a small impact crater: An age of Kaali crater (Estonia) based on charcoal emplaced within proximal ejecta, Meteoritics & Planetary Science 51(4), p. 681-695, University of Arkansas, url, doi:10.1111/maps.12616