Chinese scientists have found evidence that Baijifeng Mountain was hit by an object from space, resulting in its twin peaks and unique impact structure.Image credit: Centre for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research
Posted on 09/17/2023 6:23:23 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
A two-peaked mountain in northeastern China is the site of the world's first confirmed mountaintop crater.
A nearly mile-wide (1.6 kilometer) divot in a Chinese mountaintop is actually an impact crater from a long-ago meteorite landing.
The newly discovered crater, located in northeastern China not far from the North Korean border, is the first confirmed mountaintop crater on Earth. Researchers aren't sure when the impact happened, but it left a circular depression and split the mountaintop into two peaks, known as Front Baijifeng and Rear Baijifeng.
The mountain peaks are littered with rock fragments known locally as "celestial stone," which turns out to be a scientifically accurate moniker... rocks on the peaks bear the telltale shock patterns of an impact with a space object...
The granite that makes up the crater formed between 150 million and 172 million years ago, which means the impact must have happened after this period, but the exact timing remains unknown, according to the new paper. Weathering patterns at one of the only other two confirmed impact craters in China — the Yilan crater in Heilongjiang province — are similar to the patterns seen on Baijifeng, the researchers wrote, suggesting their ages might be similar.
Yilan crater, at 49,000 years old, is the largest impact crater under 100,000 years old ever found. The third impact crater in China, also confirmed by Chen, is called the Xiuyan crater, also in the country's northeast.
A very massive crater, known only from the scattered glassy rocks created by the impact that fell as far away as Australia, may also be buried beneath the desert in northwestern China, according to research published in August in the journal Scientific Reports. But scientists have yet to uncover its location.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Chinese scientists have found evidence that Baijifeng Mountain was hit by an object from space, resulting in its twin peaks and unique impact structure.Image credit: Centre for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research
They should have said this is the first mountaintop “meteor” crater ever found. I remember when it was common to refer to a volcano’s caldera as a “crater.”
You’ve seen one you’ve seen em’ all.
News to me that meteorites 'land'. /s
Would you prefer “touch down”? Maybe “ease their way to the surface”?
There’s lots of meteor craters on tops of mountains. You can’t see them because of the trees. You have to go into the mountains and ask the hunters or the Indians. They won’t show up on a satellite or aerial photo. These people have very little common sense. They must be city slickers...never set foot in the mountains.
Hunting as kids we found 3 on top of Mountain here 8 miles from my farm..later We flew over them in Stearman cropduster and took couple of photos. We recognize right away because my sister has one in her farm and we walked right over the edges of them and said, Hey! Nobody builds a wall with no stones...”
Some of them are guess wait for it.mountain lakes... Who woulda thunk it
Looking back now I fogger it was part of a comet breaking up coz couples years ago we found mor in a straight line 5 miles away
Could be caldera - A caldera is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption.
Unless the geology says positively no vulcanism!
Also, it would be good to get some samples and see if they show impact stress before concluding they were from meteorites.
So...the twin peaks were actually a single peak at one time until the meteorite hit? I bet that kicked up some debris.
"How to get Celestial Stone & Shell in Terraria! Moon & Sun Stone, Moon Charm & Neptune's Shell!"
I don’t see anything particularly noteworthy. There must be literally thousands of ancient strike sites now largely obliterated by time, tectonic movement & earthquakes and erosion.
Cosmik Debris (Live From Edinboro, PA - May 8, 1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwMPRSWaeiM
Cosmik Debris. Love me some Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.
They seem to have forgotten the Cumberland Gap in the USA.
Frank Zappa...a true & gifted showman...and very interesting person. Per wiki:
“He always encouraged his fans to register to vote on album covers, and throughout 1988, he had registration booths at his concerts.[9]: 348 He even considered running for president of the United States as an independent.[9]: 365 [137]”
He was a libertarian and probably a curmudgeon. In the High Times interview back, hmm, early-1980s or maybe 1890s I dunno, he talked about being on a plane next to a Spanish politician (maybe their head of state) and being asked for some advice. His political aspirations were probably never 100 percent serious, but he said his platform was to dismantle the federal gov't except for the DoD. Sort of constructionist. :^)
I bought a pair of pants at the Cumberland Gap, and guess what? There was a hole in them! ;^)
The craters are the top of granite mountains. The glaciers would have wiped volcanoes down smooth. These got shaped edges blasted right into the granite.
My cousin is a geologist.
He told me they were parts of a comet because they are close together not many many miles apart except the other group.
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