Goat Paddock crater

Template:Short description Template:Use Australian English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox terrestrial impact site Goat Paddock is a 5 km-diameter near-circular bowl-shaped depression in a range of gently dipping Proterozoic sandstone in the Kimberley Region of northern Western Australia, 106 km west-southwest of Halls Creek. It is interpreted as an ancient meteorite impact crater, the evidence including breccia containing melted rocks, silica glass, shatter cones and shocked quartz.<ref name="Harms_1980">Harms J.E., Milton D.J., Ferguson J., Gilbert D.J., Harris W.K. & Goleby B. 1980. Goat Paddock cryptoexplosion crater, Western Australia. Nature 286, 704–706. Abstract</ref><ref name="Milton_2005">Milton D.J. & Macdonald F.A. 2005. Goat Paddock, Western Australia: an impact crater near the simple – complex transition. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 52, 691–698. AbstractTemplate:Dead link</ref><ref>Template:Cite Earth Impact DB</ref> Drilling shows that the crater is filled with about 200 m of ancient lake sediments containing Early Eocene pollen, this age thus giving a minimum estimate for the age of the crater itself.<ref name="Harms_1980"/> The crater is not perfectly circular, but slightly elongated in a north–south direction, suggesting that the projectile struck at low angle from either the north or south.

• Goat Paddock Western Australia oblique.jpg

  Oblique Landsat image draped over digital elevation data (x3 vertical exaggeration), Goat Paddock crater (circular feature in centre); screen capture from the NASA World Wind program

• Goat Paddock Crater.jpg

  The crater can be seen at the centre of this image

Further reading

• Milton, D. J., Ferguson, J. and Fudali, R.F., Goat Paddock impact crater, Western Australia (abstract). Meteoritics, v. 15, p. 333. 1980

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