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Boxhole crater

Boxhole is a young impact crater located approximately 180&nbsp;km (265&nbsp;km by road) north-east of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, Australia. It is 170 metres in diameter and its age is estimated to be 5,400 ± 1,500 years based on the cosmogenic <sup>14</sup>C terrestrial age of the meteorite, placing it in the Holocene. The crater is exposed to the surface.

Description

In 1937 Joe Webb, a shearer at Boxhole sheep station, took geologist Cecil Madigan to examine the crater. Madigan discovered nickel-bearing metallic fragments and iron shale-balls similar to those found at Henbury to the south of Alice Springs. It was the second impact crater to be described in Australia, after Henbury. A later search found additional meteoritic metal including an iron mass of 181 pounds (82&nbsp;kg)&nbsp;, now in the Natural History Museum, London.

See also

References

Further reading

  • Cassidy, W. A., Descriptions and topographic maps of the Wolf Creek and Boxhole craters, Australia (abstract). French, B.M. and Short, N.M., eds., Shock Metamorphism of Natural Materials, Mono Book Corp., Baltimore, MD, p.&nbsp;623. 1968
  • Shoemaker, E. M., Roddy, D.J., Shoemaker, C.S. and Roddy,J.K., The Boxhole meteorite crater, Northern territory, Australia (abstract). Lunar and Planetary Science XIX, pp.&nbsp;1081–1082. 1988

External links