New atlas presents and explains impact sites of meteorites and asteroids around the world

Professor Thomas Kenkmann, geologist from the Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Friborg, with the mineralogist Professor Wolf Uwe Reimold from the University of Brasilia, Brazil and Dr Manfred Gottwald from the Center German Aerospace (DLR) has published an atlas offering a comprehensive overview of all known impact craters on every continent. The authors present the more than 200 land impact sites on high-resolution topographic maps and satellite images, along with detailed geological descriptions and photographs of the crater structures and their rocks. They also explain the essential details of each impact event.

The formation of craters by the impact of asteroids and comets has always been a fundamental process in the solar system, says Kenkmann. As the planets developed with their moons, these impacts played an important role in increasing planetary mass, shaping the surfaces of planetary bodies and, later, influencing their development as well. And larger meteorite impacts ultimately affected the development of life on Earth.

Today, mapping of what can still be seen impact structures on the Earth’s surface can be done by satellites in low Earth orbit. From 2010 to 2016, the DLR successfully measured the surface of the Earth with the radar satellites of the TanDEM-X mission. The data acquired made it possible, for the first time, to derive a global terrain model with a height precision up to one meter. From this global digital elevation model, the authors were able to produce this complete 600-page topographic atlas with information on all land impact craters known to date.

Reference: Gottwald, M., Kenkmann, T., Reimold, WU (2020): Terrestrial Impact Structures. The TanDEM-X Atlas. Part 1 and 2. Munich.