Follo0wing the impact of a meteorite in Alberta this week (see this thread).
I consulted the Earth Impact Data Base. And one thing that I noticed, there seems to be more impacts in the northern part of the northern hemisphere (Quebec, Finland Sweden). Is it just because these areas are more well-known or is there another reason ?
With about 70% of the world’s land mass, the Northern Hemisphere presents a better target. Prolly a lot of space rocks lying around on the ocean floor down under.
Misread the question. No insight into why they would concentrate up north.
My guess would be that, for whatever reason, some countries participate in supplying the database, and some don’t. If you look at North America, for example, nothing from Mexico.
The other point, besides the fact that the Northern Hemisphere has more land than the Southern, is that impact craters are concentrated on shields – parts of the continents that are geologically stable and very old, even in geologic terms. The Canadian Shield has either a majority or a substantial plurality of all known definite impact craters. The Scandinavian and Angara (in Siberia) shields also have a bunch.
The Vredevoort astrobleme, one of the largest, is located in South Africa, but on the shield there (Karroo? I don’t recall the shield name).
Thanks, Poly, that would probably explain it.