Tabun-Khara-Obo crater

Template:Short description Template:Infobox terrestrial impact site Tabun-Khara-Obo is an impact crater in the Dornogovi Aimag (province) the south-east of Mongolia.<ref>Earth Impact DB - Tabun-Khara-Obo</ref> The crater, which is exposed at the surface, is Template:Convert in diameter. The crater's rim rises some Template:Convert above the crater bottom,<ref name="Earth Observatory" /> but the bottom of crater is covered with up to Template:Convert thick layer of lake deposits - a testimony that this crater in earlier times was filled with a lake.<ref name=wondermondo>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

It has an estimated age of 150 ± 20 million years (Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous). The site was first identified as a probable impact crater in the 1960s,<ref name=wondermondo /> although confirmation of the hypothesis only occurred decades later.<ref name="Earth Observatory">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Drilling at the site in 2008 revealed rock features consistent with high-speed impacts such as those caused by meteorites.<ref name="Earth Observatory" />

• Tabun-Khara-Obo crater.jpg

  Landsat image of the Tabun-Khara-Obo crater; screen capture from NASA World Wind.

• Tabun-Khara-Obo crater x5.jpg

  Oblique Landsat image of Tabun-Khara-Obo crater draped over digital elevation model (x5 vertical exaggeration); screen capture from NASA World Wind.

• Image-Tabun-Khara-Obo crater from-the-ground.jpg

  View to north across the Tabun-Khara-Obo crater.

• Tabun Khara Obo, Mongolia.jpg

  Satellite image of the crater and surrounding area.

Further reading

• Amgaa, T., Koelberl, C., Anonymous, Geology and petrography of Tabun Khara Obo Crater (abstract). Meteoritics & Planetary Science, vol. 44, abstract 5019
• Amgaa, T., Koelberl, C., Anonymous, Impact origin of Tabun Khara Obo Crater, Mongolia, confirmed by drill core studies. (Abstract). Geological Society of America, vol. 41, pp. 533. 2009
• McHone, J. F., Dietz, R. S., Tabun Khyara Obo crater, Mongolia: Probably meteoritic. Meteoritics, V. 11, pp. 332–333. 1976
• Shkerin, L. M., Geological structure of the crater-like feature Tabun Khara Obo (south east Mongolia) (in Russian). Meteoritika, v. 35, pp. 97–102. 1976
• Suetenko, O. D., Shkerin, L. M., A proposed meteorite crater in southeastern Mongolia (in Russian). Astronomischeskii Vestnik, v. 4, pp. 261–263. 1970

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