This list of

impact structure An impact structure is a generally circular or craterlike geologic structure of deformed bedrock or sediment produced by impact on a planetary surface, whatever the stage of erosion of the structure. In contrast, an impact crater is the surface e ...

s (including impact craters) on

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

contains the majority of the 194+ confirmed impact structures given in the

Earth Impact Database The Earth Impact Database is a database of confirmed impact structures or impact crater, craters on Earth. It was initiated in 1955 by the Dominion Observatory, Ottawa, under the direction of Carlyle Smith Beals, Carlyle S. Beals. Since 2001, it h ...

as of 2024. Alphabetical lists for different continents can be found under Impact structures by continent below. Unconfirmed structures can be found at

List of possible impact structures on Earth This list includes potential but unconfirmed structures that are not listed on the Earth Impact Database list of confirmed impact structures. For confirmed impact structures, see List of impact structures on Earth. List of confirmed and possibl ...

Confirmed impact structures listed by size and age

These features were caused by the collision of

meteor A meteor, known colloquially as a shooting star, is a glowing streak of a small body (usually meteoroid) going through Earth's atmosphere, after being heated to incandescence by collisions with air molecules in the upper atmosphere, creating a ...

s (consisting of large fragments of

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

s) or

comets A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or coma surrounding the nucleus, an ...

(consisting of ice, dust particles and rocky fragments) with the Earth. For eroded or buried craters, the stated diameter typically refers to the best available estimate of the original

rim Rim may refer to: *Rim (basketball), the hoop through which the ball must pass **Breakaway rim, a sprung basketball rim * Rim (coin), the raised edge which surrounds the coin design * Rim (crater), extending above the local surface *Rim (firearms) ...

diameter, and may not correspond to present surface features. Time units are either in ka (thousands) or Ma (millions) of years.

10 ka or less

Less than ten thousand years old, and with a diameter of or more. The EID lists fewer than ten such craters, and the largest in the last 100,000 years (100 ka) is the Rio Cuarto crater in

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

.Bland, Phil A.; de Souza Filho, C. R.; Timothy Jull, A. J.; Kelley, Simon P.; Hough, Robert Michael; Artemieva, N. A.; Pierazzo, E.; Coniglio, J.; Pinotti, Lucio; Evers, V.; Kearsley, Anton; (2002)
"A possible tektite strewn field in the Argentinian Pampa"
''Science'', volume 296, issue 5570, pp. 1109–12 However, there is some uncertainty regarding its origins and age, with some sources giving it as < 10 kaSchultz, Peter H.; Lianza, Ruben E. (1992) "Recent grazing impacts on the Earth recorded in the Rio Cuarto crater field, Argentina", Nature 355, pp. 234–37 (16 January 1992) while the EID gives a broader < 100 ka. The Kaali impacts () during the

Nordic Bronze Age The Nordic Bronze Age (also Northern Bronze Age, or Scandinavian Bronze Age) is a period of Scandinavian prehistory from . The Nordic Bronze Age culture emerged about 1750 BC as a continuation of the Late Neolithic Dagger period, which is root ...

may have influenced Estonian and Finnish mythology, the

Campo del Cielo Campo del Cielo ("Field of Heaven" or "Field of the Sky" in English) refers to a group of iron meteorites and the area in Argentina where they were found. The site straddles the provinces of Chaco and Santiago del Estero, located north-northwes ...

() could be in the legends of some Native Argentine tribes, while Henbury () has figured in

Australian Aboriginal Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia (co ...

oral traditions. Macha craters overview map

The EID gives a size of about for Campo del Cielo, but other sources quote .

10 ka to 1 Ma

From between 10 thousand years and one million years ago, and with a diameter of less than : From between ten thousand years and one million years ago, and with a diameter of or more. The largest in the last one million years is the

Zhamanshin crater Zhamanshin () is a meteorite crater in Kazakhstan. It is in diameter and the age is estimated to be 900,000 ± 100,000 years (Pleistocene). The crater is exposed at the surface. Description It is believed that the Zhamanshin crater is the sit ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

and has been described as being capable of producing a nuclear-like winter. The source of the enormous

Australasian strewnfield The Australasian strewnfield is the youngest and largest of the tektite strewnfields, with recent estimates suggesting it might cover 10%–30% of the Earth's surface.Glass, B.P. and Wu, J., 1993. ''Coesite and shocked quartz discovered in the, ...

(c. 780 ka) is a currently undiscovered crater probably located in Southeast Asia.Povenmire, Harold; Liu, W.; Xianlin, Luo (1999
"Australasian tektites found in Guangxi Province, China"
in Proceedings of the 30th Annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, March 1999Glass, Billy P.; Pizzuto, James E. (1994
"Geographic variation in Australasian microtektite concentrations: Implications concerning the location and size of the source crater"
''Journal of Geophysical Research'', vol. 99, no. E9, 19075–81, September 1994

1 Ma to 10 Ma

From between 1 and 10 million years ago. The large but apparently craterless

Eltanin impact The Eltanin impact is thought to be an impact event, asteroid impact in the eastern part of the South Pacific Ocean that occurred around the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary approximately 2.51 ± 0.07 million years ago. The impact occurred ...

(2.5 Ma) into the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

has been suggested as contributing to the glaciations and cooling during the Pliocene.

10 Ma or more

Most recorded impact craters are over 10 million years old, or have widely uncertain ages. The

Chicxulub impact The Chicxulub crater is an impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Its center is offshore, but the crater is named after the onshore community of Chicxulub Pueblo (not the larger coastal town of Chicxulub Puerto). I ...

has been widely considered the most likely cause for the Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction, with some scholars linking other impacts like the Popigai impact in Russia and the Chesapeake Bay impact to later extinction events, though the causal relationship has been questioned. Sudbury Wanapitei WorldWind

Inferred impact events

Some impact events are only known from events like layers of spherules or

tektite Tektites () are gravel-sized bodies composed of black, green, brown or grey natural glass formed from terrestrial debris ejected during meteorite impacts. The term was coined by Austrian geologist Franz Eduard Suess (1867–1941), son of Eduar ...

s generated by the impact recorded in contemporary rocks, and their impact structures may no longer exist.

Sublists and statistics of impact structures by continent

, the

(EID) contains 190 confirmed impact structures. The table below is arranged by the continent's percentage of the Earth's land area, and where Asian and Russian structures are grouped together per EID convention. The global distribution of known impact structures apparently shows a surprising asymmetry,Prezzi, Claudia B.; Orgeira, María Julia; Acevedo, Rogelio D.; Ponce, Juan Federico; Martinez, Oscar; Rabassa, Jorge O.; Corbella, Hugo; Vásquez, Carlos; González-Guillot, Mauricio; Subías, Ignacio; (2011)
"Geophysical characterization of two circular structures at Bajada del Diablo (Patagonia, Argentina): Indication of impact origin"
''Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors'', vol. 192, pp. 21–34 with the small but well-funded

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

an continent having a ''large'' percentage of confirmed impact structures. It is suggested this situation is an artifact, highlighting the importance of intensifying research in less studied areas like

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

and elsewhere. Links in the column "Continent" will give a list of craters for that continent.

References

External links

Impact Database
(formerly Suspected Earth Impact Sites list) maintained by David Rajmon fo

US
Impact Meteor Crater Viewer
Google Maps Page with Locations of Meteor Craters around the world
Impact Craters
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Impact craters on Earth Lists of coordinates