Anybody researched impact sites then gone out looking for meteorites?

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Hey guys,
Im over here in W.A and thinking about looking for known strewn fields locations close to Perth and heading out with my trusty Mine lab Xterra 705 .
I spose you have to go all metals and dig all iron targets hey?
Anyone gone out looking and found any?
 
Found a few while detecting but not specifically looking for them.
Plenty of tectites though and pretty sure I've found a small impact crator.
 
No idea about near Perth sorry, I'm about 1000klms away. Tectites are common on the gold fields and I'd imagine meteorites are too, just I don't have a real clue what I'm looking for.

The possible impact crator I'm keeping close to my chest for the time being. I have taken 2 geos there so far who are reasonably confidant it is.
 
madtuna said:
No idea about near Perth sorry, I'm about 1000klms away. Tectites are common on the gold fields and I'd imagine meteorites are too, just I don't have a real clue what I'm looking for.

The possible impact crator I'm keeping close to my chest for the time being. I have taken 2 geos there so far who are reasonably confidant it is.

Yeah they can be tricky to know what to look for. Yep keep it on the down low ;)
This vid is so good. Love to find something like this...
[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnRXstduK9w[/video]
 
I've looked it up,there's some interesting impact crater databases.

the new fireball sky watch network would also be interesting to watch.

iron meteorites is easy,go dragging with neodymium magnets.

this site is the one I browsed a few years ago,it's very cool:

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meteor/
 
malri_au said:
I've looked it up,there's some interesting impact crater databases.

the new fireball sky watch network would also be interesting to watch.

iron meteorites is easy,go dragging with neodymium magnets.

this site is the one I browsed a few years ago,it's very cool:

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meteor/

Actually not that easy....a magnet will pick up half of WA
 
Ya but it picks up them meteors with all the rest of the crap.

you wouldn't do it unless you knew there was a strewn field or where pretty confident.
 
i have the stone like meteorite nwa 4485, weight 410 grams and i want to sell it, you can see the video by youtube title : meteorite lunar weight 410 grams.
 
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All the key strewnfields like mundrabilla, wiluna and mount egerton are reguarly raided by people. Some yanks even do trips illegally find and export illegally and then sell them on ebay. Strewnfield location maps litter the net.
 
Interestingly, this article appeared today -

Earths Oldest Asteroid Impact Found in Australia

Researchers reported on Tuesday in Nature Communications that they have pinpointed it, in Western Australia. It was caused by an impact more than 2.2 billion years ago.

The Yarrabubba impact structure, about a days drive northeast of Perth, isnt much to look at today. The original crater, believed to have been roughly 40 miles in diameter, is long gone.
Theres no topography that rises up, said Aaron Cavosie, a planetary scientist at Curtin University in Perth and a member of the research team.
Thats because the combined effects of wind, rain, glaciation and plate tectonics have scoured several miles off the surface of the planet, effectively erasing the crater. The extent of erosion suggests that the impact structure is very, very old.

In 2014, Dr. Erickson collected roughly 200 pounds of granitic rocks from Yarrabubba. Back in the laboratory, he and his colleagues placed the rocks in water and added 120,000 volts of electricity. That jolt broke the rocks into sand-size grains. The scientists were looking for grains of zircon and monazite, tough minerals that survive for billions of years and, crucially, incorporate uranium and thorium atoms into their crystalline structure.
Uranium and thorium decay, in a steady dribble over billions of years, into lead. But the searing temperatures of an impact thousands of degrees Fahrenheit cause zircon and monazite to recrystallize, a process that drives out lead.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/tech...found-in-australia/ar-BBZbxCQ?ocid=spartanntp
 
METEORITE CRATERS

To The Editor,

SirI am pleased to note that the Henbury meteorite craters are to be investigated. The Parks brothers, who were the first to take the country up as cattle runs, knew of them; also the late A. J. Breaden, who took over the runs and Todmorden. I went to Todmorden in 1916, and while fixing up tools in the blacksmith's shop noticed a slug of metallic iron. I saw a ribbon-like structure and concluded it contained nickel. I learned that it came from the blowholes at Henbury. On going to Henbury some time afterwards, I was at once satisfied as to the cause of the craters. The largest pieces of metal were some distance north-east of the craters, as though they had dropped from a molten mass falling at great speed. I concluded that probably huge masses of metal lay buried in the bottom of the craters. Charley Flemming, of Oodnadatta, forged a piece of the metal. Mr. Breaden supplied me with one of his oldest natives, who would not approach within half a mile of any crater; neither would he camp within two miles of them, and warned me not to go near to them. He told me that "Chinka waroo" (fire-devil) lived in "yabo'" (rock hole). He said his father's father had seen him, and that he came from the sun. He said that blackfellows were not on any account to stoop down and drink water from "yabo," because he would then fill them with a piece of iron. It was only because I was grey headed, he remarked, that he did not attack me in the daylight. This superstition prevails all through the Peter mann Ranges and elsewhere. Travelling south from Mount Farwell along the edge of the desert to a point about due west of Alice Springs, I saw a crater caused by a meteorite. Hornblend granite rock was shattered and indented to a shallow depth. In a low cretaceous hill south-west from Oodnadatta there is a deep puncture. East of Alice about 50 miles (I am informed by a friend) there is a large meteorite mass exposed. I have noted during travels since 1879 that all aborigines treat superstitiously anything unusual. While looking up fossils, I found it hard to keep boys near me; they would make every excuse to avoid the locality. Once I was after opal, and had travelled about 200 miles, bringing two natives with me to look after the camels. One evening I showed them some pieces of opal. They started and looked horrified. I enquired what was wrong, and they replied, "One too much lookem all about." In the morning I found them moaning, with their heads almost buried in the sand; and not one step further would they accompany me. So I was obliged to put back 200 miles to get a black brave enough to look at opal. Australia will, in the future, provide a great deal of research work for scientists. Seemingly there was, at one time, a large inland sea, and part of its edge was in the vicinity of Oodnadatta. Huge amphibica probably played about its shores.-

I am, Sir, &c., J. MAX MITCHELL, Kadina.

The Advertiser
Thu 11 Jan 1934
Page 12

https://trove.nla.gov.au/
 
Just for those who don't know, impact craters do not have large meteorites in their base (one American spent a fortune digging tunnels into a large impact crater in Nevada, thinking he would find an iron ore mine). In fact of the largest impact craters, only two (one being Wolf Creek) have any of the original meteorite fragments within the crater. However meteorite fragments are often found in the area outside craters, surrounding them. Sometimes after impact, the Earth's crust re-adjusts, and what was originally the floor of the crater rises, becomes a hill in its center (e.g. Mistamin Crater, where Horshoe Island in the centre is the risen floor).

1582600476_mistamin.jpg


Tektites are not thought to be of extra-terrestrial origin (not from space), but are thought to be glass formed from Earth rocks during the impact and thrown into the air.

However I guess most of you who hunt around impact sites know this - but it might inform beginners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_impact_craters_in_Australia

1582600649_impact_site_names.jpg
 
Hi folks,

I just stumbled across this forum, and very much enjoy the topic. I'm not a meteorite hunter, but I do hunt for impact craters for a living. I've been a Senior Research Fellow in the Space Science and Technology Centre at Curtin Uni in Perth since 2015. I can't post links yes (since I'm new to the forum), but if you google 'Curtin Cavosie' you'll find my staff page. I was one of the senior authors on the 2020 Nature paper about the Yarrabubba crater, and in 2019 we published articles providing confirmation of two impact craters: Yallallie in WA, and one called Pantasma in Nicaragua.

If any of you think you've found a bona fide impact crater, and are interested in have it examined by a planetary scientist who does this for a living, send me an email. If it ends up being legit, you'll get to share in all the glory of publishing a scientific paper with your name on it. What's involved it confirming craters? A lot of work, actually. Usually it requires at least one site visit, see what rocks are exposed, hope that ones are present that record something definitive about the impact history, and then do a lot of microscopy (transmitted light & electron microscopy) to search for and document diagnostic evidence (shocked minerals, evidence of dissolved impactor in melts, etc.). Sometimes we get lucky and find the right minerals to date the impact event, but that doesn't happen in all cases due to erosion, burial, etc.

As a side note, one of my PhD students is just finishing a review paper on the record of impact craters in Australia. Hopefully it will come out by the end of the year. I'll drop a note to this forum when its out.

Cheers, Aaron
 
I went searching for the impact crater a little south west of Tennant Creek, NT. It was very hard to determine if what I was seeing was an actual eroded and deteriorated impact zone, except for just a faint ridge on the north western edge.
 
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