Was looking at the sightsee by space web site of this and just started to zoom out on google maps.
When I got to 200mi/500kms and 500mi/1000km I noticed that it looked for all the world (at least to me) like a meteor strike.
You have a very (comparably) flat center with a raised ridge along its circumference with what seem to be ripples expanding outwards.
Can anyone else see this? Or am I once again spending too much time in front of the monitor?
Can anyone hazard a guess as to how it formed?
Maybe I’m missing what you’re looking at, but all I can see is an irregularly shaped object in the center. I’ve never seen pictures of any meteorite craters here or on other planets that were anything other than circular. In fact, this looks for all the world like some sort of raised outcropping, rather than a dent of any sort. I’ll watch this thread to see what the experts tell us.
Sorry I should clarify. It IS Uluru (ayers rock). I don’t know how to link to google maps to show what I want.
You have to zoom out to see what I mean.
Earth Impact Database, Australia
If I’m seeing the same thing you are, I think it’s the drainage pattern within a few hundred miles of the rock rather than a crater.
whatever you’re seeing is too subtle for me to notice. How does Ayers Rock map onto the location of various known craters in Australia? It would seem unlikely that you’ve discovered one that is unknown, particlularly considering the prominence and importance of that location.
I can see what you mean, rabbit. You have to zoom out until you have nearly the whole of Australia on the screen - 200 miles being the scale at bottom left. There’s a visible circle of lighter colour in an almost perfect circle around Uluru, with an approximate 800 mile diameter, almost touching the coasts. Of course it’s almost certainly a coincidence, but pretty interesting nonetheless.
Uluru is more or less in the centre of Australia. It’s very very dry in there and it gets wetter (and the vegetation greener) out from there. The roughly circular appearance is light coloured desert changing to greener areas from the central deserts out. That’s all.
FWIW, there’s a new horror movie from Australia coming out just now which may be set right in or around this crater. **Wolf Creek **, nominally based on actual events, is set in the Wolf Creek National Park in the Outback.
Here’s a few exerpts from a Newark Star-Ledger review: “The movie has a verite vibe that ratchets up the scares…McLean captures the eerie desolation of the setting with shots of barren landscapes and eye-clipse sunsets. The panoramas are so surreal, at times it looks like action is taking place on another planet.”
“The film’s tone darkens once they hit the road, bound for the remote Wolf Creek National Park, home to one of the largest meteor craters in the world. During a campfire scene, Ben tells a story about the area’s UFO activity… they reach Wolf Creek and set off for a hike.”
“Weird stuff happens near the crater. Watches stop ticking, and the car’s engine dies, leaving them stranded in the middle of nowhere…”
I have no idea if the area has a reputation for UFO or paranormal activity, much less an actual history of same (see below), or if that was an invention for the movie.
I know it’s desert land, what caught my eye (aside from the circular ridgelines) are the “ripples” I see emanating outwards. I’ll try to post a pic of what I mean, but it just looks so regular that it has to be either volcanic or impact. Course it could just be the pic. I once saw a documentary where the guy was talking about how some particularly old impact craters were only distinguishable from space (some in africa were the examples). THey looked like this, although smaller in scale.
I’ve actually emailed the Geologic society of australia to see if they know. (They’d know about this sort of stuff right?)
They should, but at the same time, folks are constantly announcing that they think that this or that feature is a previously unnoticed impact crater. I don’t know often these declaration’s hold up, so it might simply be just a case of wishfull thinking. At one point in time, someone was claiming that Iceland was basically a “scab” caused by a dino-killer asteroid that punched through the crust. (I haven’t heard that in ages, so it’s possible the theory’s been discredited by now.)
