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Lonar crater

Figure: Shear wave seismic section of Lonar crater showing the details of crater floor deposits (top 100 m thick lake sediments underlain by impact breccia), the impact damage zone underneath, a tongue-like feature in the downrange direction of the impact crater, suggest oblique impact. The large black arrow indicates the impact trajectory and the location of up-range rim.

Lonar crater in Maharashtra state of India is one of the rare impact craters on Earth. It was fully formed in the basaltic target and resembles simple impact craters formed on basaltic surfaces of planets and moons. The seismic image using Ambient Noise Tomography (ANT) brought out a complete shape and size of the damage zone in the sub‐surface by the meteoritic impact about 50,000 years ago. This study revealed a ∼500–900‐m‐thick heterogeneous basaltic target underlain by an Archean granite‐gneiss basement; and interestingly, an asymmetric damage zone beneath ∼400‐m‐deep original crater floor indicating southwest directed oblique impact responsible for the formation of Lonar crater.

Further details: Kumari, P. S., Gupta, S., & Senthil Kumar, P. (2024). Ambient noise tomography reveals asymmetric impact damage zone beneath Lonar Crater, India: Implications for oblique impact cratering in heterogeneous basalt, with planetary applications. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 129, e2023JE008224. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JE008224 

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