Iturralde Structure, Bolivia
by Science Source
Title
Iturralde Structure, Bolivia
Artist
Science Source
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
An 8-kilometer (5-mile) wide crater of possible impact origin is shown in this view of an isolated part of the Bolivian Amazon from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. The circular feature at the center-left of the image, known as the Iturralde Structure, is possibly the Earth's most recent "big" impact event recording collision with a meteor or comet that might have occurred between 11,000 and 30,000 years ago. Although the structure was identified on satellite photographs in the mid-1980s, its location is so remote that it has only been visited by scientific investigators twice, most recently by a team from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in September 2002. Lying in an area of very low relief, the landform is a quasi-circular closed depression only about 20 meters (66 feet) in depth, with sharply defined sub-angular "rim" materials. It resembles a "cookie cutter" in that its appearance "cuts" the heavily vegetated soft-sediments and pampas of this part of Bolivia. The SRTM data
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August 14th, 2014
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