“...Why are the circles elliptical and oriented in a direction? At Prudhoe Bay there are similar looking features shaped by prevailing wind....”
Carolina bays were shaped by the prevailing wind, too, which in this case, is from the southwest. When water tables were seasonally high, the wind blowing from the sw caused waves in the (ponded) bays, having maximum scouring effect along the edges of the bays that were perpendicular to the wind (i.e., NW and SE edges). The scouring caused disaggregation of fines. Then when the water tables dropped seasonally, the fines were picked up by the wind and redeposited offsite.
Probably so. If we look at other examples of impact craters, such as Mercury, the moon, Mars, any of the various rocky moons imaged by various spacecraft, we see round craters. Not many elongated craters. In fact, I don’t recall any examples. Did every meteoroid impact come straight down from vertical?