DECATURVILLE IMPACT CRATER

DECATURVILLE IMPACT STRUCTURE

by: Charles O’Dale

  • Type: Central peak
  • Age Ma: 260-323 (Geological dating)aPERMIAN
  • Diameter: 5.5 km
  • Location: N 37° 53’ 38″ W 92° 43’ 00″
  • Shock Metamorphism:  breccia, shatter cones, planar elements in quartz and intense intragranular deformation.

aThe age of the Decaturville impact structure is not definitely known but is almost certainly post-Pennsylvanian, and may be younger than Cretaceous.

Rampino and Volk (1996) and Rampino (1997) theorize that the individual structures along the 38th parallel lineament are the result of a single serial impact event, similar to the serial impact of the fragmented Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 into Jupiter during 1994.

Decaturville impact structure, a complex crater with a central uplift (smaller circle).

The Decaturville structure is positioned in the background of this image. We took this image on our post solar eclipse USA crater tour, 2017.
Impact and explosion cratering: Planetary and terrestrial implications; Proceedings of the Symposium on Planetary Cratering Mechanics, Flagstaff, Ariz., September 13-17, 1976. (A78-44030 19-91) New York, Pergamon Press, Inc., 1977, p. 321-341.
Generalized geologic map of the Decaturville structure.
A sample from the rim of the Decaturville, MO, impact crater. (Courtesy Robert Beauford).

References

[see – METEORITE]

R. E. Beauford,   FERROUS MINERALS AND IMPACTITE MINERALIZATION AT MISSOURI’S CROOKED CREEK AND DECATURVILLE IMPACT CRATERS. Arkansas Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, MUSE 202, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, 72701, USA.

Offield, T. W., Pohn, H. A., Deformation at the Decaturville impact structure, Missouri.  Roddy, D.J., Pepin, R.O. and Merrill, R.B., eds., Impact and Explosion Cratering, Pergamon Press, New York, pp. 321-341. 1977