Kursk - Hypervelocity Impact Crater

Alternate Names N/A
Coordinates 51° 42' 0" N; 36° 0' 0" E
Notes
  1. E of the city of Kursk in SW Russia.
Country Russia
Region Kursk
Date Confirmed 1974
Notes
  1. Shock metamorphic features including diaplectic glass and coesite reported in (Masaitis, 1974).
Buried? Yes
Notes
  1. Buried below a 200 m sequence of Quaternary sands and Jurassic and Cretaceous sand, shales and siltstones (Masaitis et al., 1980).
Drilled? Yes
Notes
  1. 3 boreholes drilled to a maximum depth of 472 m in the central and outer regions of the depression penetrate sedimentary cover, allogenic breccia and into fractured basement complex (Masaitis et al., 1980).
Target Type Mixed
Notes
  1. Devonian sandstones, limestones and clays and Archean and Proterozoic granites, gneisses and mafic intrusives (Masaitis et al., 1980).
Sub-Type Gneiss, Intrusives, Limestone, Maficintrusives, Sandstone, Granite
Apparent Crater Diameter (km) 5.5 km
Age (Ma) 163 - 359
Notes :
  1. Devonian rocks are disrupted and Middle Jurassic and younger deposits cover the structure; due to substantial erosion, formation time is estimated to be Permian or Triassic (Masaitis, 1999). See also (Masaitis et al., 1980), who provided an age of 250 ± 80 Ma.

Method :
  1. Stratigraphy
Impactor Type Unknown

Advanced Data Fields

Notes

Local Language
N/A
Erosion
5
  1. Ejecta and rim completely eroded, crater-fill products are partially preserved (Masaitis et al., 1980) (Grieve, 1982).
Final Rim Diameter
Unknown
Apparent Rim Diameter
5.5 km
  1. Dimensions from diagram in (Masaitis et al., 1980).
Rim Reliability Index
4
  1. A buried depression with an eroded central uplift is filled with breccia and concealed under sediment (Masaitis et al., 1980). Drilling and geophysical data indicate the presence of a central uplift ~1–2 km in diameter that rises 200 m above the crater floor; it is completely covered by ~200 m of allochthonous crater-fill impactites (Masaitis, 1999).
Crater Morphology
Complex
Central Uplift Diameter
1 km
Central Uplift Height
Unknown
Uplift Reliability Index
4
Structural Uplift
Unknown
Thickness of Seds
Unknown
Target Age
Precambrian Palaeozoic
Marine
No
Impactor Type
Unknown
Other Shock Metamorphism
No
Shatter Cones
No
  1. No mention of occurrence of shatter cones in (Masaitis, 1999).
Planar Fractures
No
Planar Deformation Features
No
Diaplectic Glass
Yes
  1. Diaplectic minerals and glasses (Masaitis, 1999).
Coesite
Yes
  1. (Gurov et al., 1978)
Stisovite
No
Crater Fill
LB
  1. Lithic breccias with a maximum preserved thickness of 270 m were observed in drill cores. Diaplectic glass is reported (Masaitis, 1999).
Proximal Ejecta
Unknown
Distal Ejecta
Unknown
Dykes
Unknown
Volume of Melt
Unknown
Depth of Melting
Unknown

References

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T V Selivanovskaya, V L Masaytis, A N Danilin, M S Mashchak, A I Raykhlin, Y M Shadenkov (1980) The geology of astroblemes in the USSR: Upper Proterozoic and Paleozoic astroblemes: The Kurskaya Astrobleme, The geology of astroblemes, Izd. Nedra, Leningrad, url