Crater, Volcanic

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A crater is a steep-sided roughly circular to elliptical depression in the earth caused either by volcanic activity or by the impact of an extraterrestrial body. Volcanic craters are formed by explosive events, and/or by the collapse of part of a volcano following withdrawal of magma. Impact craters are the result of collisions between Earth and extraterrestrial bodies such as meteors or comets.

Large volcanic craters are known as calderas among vulcanologists. There are two often-complementary processes involved in their formation; violent eruptions of ash and magma, and/or the collapse of a volcanic surface following withdrawal of a large body of magma from the subsurface. An example of the first type may be Crater Lake in Oregon, thought to have been produced by a violent explosion that destroyed a volcano the size of Mount St. Helens. The caldera at Kilauea, in contrast, is thought to be the result of magma drainage from beneath the summit. There is still significant discussion about whether volcanic calderas are formed directly by explosion, indirectly by collapse of the surface following magma ejection or withdrawal, or by both.

Impact craters are the result of collisions of extraterrestrial bodies with the earth. Only recently have scientists begun to understand the importance of impact processes in shaping the planet and life on it. Exploration of our solar system has revealed that essentially all planetary bodies are cratered. The density of craters on the older surfaces of the Moon indicates an intense bombardment from approximately 4.6 to 3.9 billion years ago. The Moon itself is likely the result of a collision of a Mars size object with a young Earth. The earth experienced the same bombardment as the other planetary bodies. In fact, Earth is subject to about twice as many impacts as the moon because of the difference in gravity. This is not obvious because tectonic and erosion activity on the earth have removed evidence of most of the impacts that have occurred. Nevertheless, approximately 150 craters have been identified, with more recognized every year.

Perhaps the most well-known impact crater on Earth is Chicxulub, a buried crater in the Yucatan, Mexico, that is 110 miles (180 kilometers) in diameter. Most geoscientists now believe that this impact event was responsible for the great mass extinction of the dinosaurs and many other species at the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K-T) boundary, 65 million years ago. Impacts this size occur infrequently, on the order of one every 100 million years. However, impacts that could cause damage similar to a nuclear winter, occur at time scales estimated as two or three every million years. This estimate is significant because the most recent known event, Zhamanshin in Kazaksthan, occurred about a million years ago.

Meteoroids and Meteorites; Volcanic Eruptions