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DARWIN GLASS, AUSTRALIA Impact Glass Fragment from Darwin Crater near Mt. Darwin,
Tasmania. Weight: 7.97 grams Dimensions: 20.26mm x 21.22mm x 17.70mm Impactite Name: DARWIN GLASS Natural glass melt created by meteorite Location: in Wild Rivers National Park, World Heritage Area,
26 km south of Queenstown, Tasmania Country: AUSTRALIA Date: Find: 1915 The huge Darwin Crater, approx. 1 km across and 200 m deep,
was created about 73,000 years ago when a meteorite struck Tasmania near Mt.
Darwin. The heat generated by the explosive force of the impact melted and
vaporized the rocks. The molten material was hurled into the sky, falling back
as glass and creating one of the world's most spectacular silica glass fields
associated with a meteorite crater.
The geologist Lostus Hill found in 1915 small pieces of
impactite glass about 10 km west of the crater but could not pinpoint the
source of it. In 1972 R.J. Ford, a geologist at the University of Tasmania,
found the crater in dense bush whilst working on an access road for the then
proposed Gordon-below-Franklin Dam for the Hydro-Electric-Commission. The
crater floor is covered by thick tea-tree swamp. In 1974 a 4WD track was
bulldozed into the crater to allow a drill hole being put down in the center.
This showed that in the past 73,000 years the crater has completely been filled
with sediment, which provides a valuable pollen record revealing the changing
vegetation of the area. |