The Vredefort Crater in South Africa was discovered in 2003 through geological studies, but the impact event that created the crater is estimated to have occurred around 2 billion years ago.
Vredefort Dome
You can visit three towns that are situated on the dome, for instance. The towns are Vredefort, Parys, and Koppies. Parys, the largest of the three, is a tourist hub. It is on the banks of the Vaal River.
the Vredefort Dome
A. A. Bisschoff has written: 'The geology of the Vredefort Dome' -- subject(s): Domes (Geology), Geology
The oldest meteor scar in South Africa is known as the Vredefort Dome. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was formed over two billion years ago when a meteorite struck the region. Today, it is recognized as one of the largest and most well-preserved meteor impact sites on Earth.
Vredefort Dome, near Johannesburg is over 2,023 million years old and its radius is 190 km.
As of 2014, there are no World Heritage Sites within Johannesburg. The closest sit to Johannesburg is Vredefort Dome which is 120 km southwest of the city. This natural site was given its World Heritage status in 2005.
The Vredefort Dome is a World Heritage Site and is the oldest and largest meteorite impact site in the world. Formed an estimated 2000 million years ago when a gigantic meteorite (asteroid) hit the earth."Vredefort Dome, approximately 120km south west of Johannesburg, is a representative part of a larger meteorite impact structure, or astrobleme and has been declared South Africa's seventh World Heritage Site (2005).Dating back 2,023 million years, it is the oldest astrobleme found on earth so far. With a radius of 190km, it is also the largest and the most deeply eroded. Vredefort Dome bears witness to the world's greatest known single energy release event, which caused devastating global change, including, according to some scientists, major evolutionary changes.It provides critical evidence of the earth's geological history and is crucial to our understanding of the evolution of the planet.Despite their importance to the planet's history, geological activity on the earth's surface has led to the disappearance of evidence from most impact sites and Vredefort is the only example on earth to provide a full geological profile of an astrobleme below the crater floor.When visiting the area you will notice small hills in a large dome shape with beautiful valleys between them.The ring of hills we see now are the eroded remains of a dome created by the rebound of the rock below the impact site after the asteroid hit. The original crater, now eroded away, is estimated to have been 250 - 300 kilometres in diameter. Some 70 cubic kilometres of rock would have been vaporised in the impact.The Vredefort structure is currently regarded the biggest and oldest clearly visible impact structure on Earth. It just beats the Sudbury impact structure in Canada for this ranking. The Sudbury structure is some 200 km in diameter and is estimated to be 1.85 billion years old.Within the ring of hills at Vredefort is found granitic gneiss rock. The force of the impact produced deep fractures in the underlying rock. Rock melted by the impact flowed down into the cracks, producing what are now exposed as ridges of hard dark rock - the granophyre dykes. This contrasts with normal geological dykes, where molten rock from deeper in the earth has flowed upwards through"
The largest impact crater on Earth is the Vredefort crater in South Africa, which was formed over 2 billion years ago when a meteorite struck the region. The crater is estimated to be about 190 miles (300 kilometers) in diameter, but erosion has significantly reduced its size over time.
in which country did the biggest meteorite hit The biggest craters can be found in Canada, in the Canadian shield. However the evidence of the biggest impact is in Mexico at the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula.
Earth Impact Database, a website concerned with over 170 scientifically-confirmed impact craters on Earth.