Mount Toondina crater

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Mount Toondina crater is an impact structure (or astrobleme), the eroded remnant of a former impact crater, situated in northern South Australia 45 km south of the township of Oodnadatta. Mount Toondina is the high point of a circular topographic feature rising out of an otherwise relatively flat desert area of the Eromanga Basin. An impact origin was first suggested in 1976, challenging the earlier diapir (salt dome) hypothesis,^[1] and strongly supported by subsequent studies.^[2] A geophysical survey using gravity methods indicates an internal structure typical of complex impact craters, including an uplifted centre, and suggests that the original crater was about 3–4 km in diameter.^[3],^[4] The crater must be younger that the Early Cretaceous age of the rocks in which it is situated, but otherwise is not well dated. It has clearly undergone significant erosion since the impact event.

[edit] References

^ Youles I.P. 1976. Mount Toondina impact structure. Geological Survey of South Australia Quarterly Geological Notes 60, 10–12.
^ Shoemaker E.M. & Shoemaker C.S. 1988. Impact Structures of Australia (1987). Lunar and Planetary Science Conference XIX, 1079–1080. Abstract
^ Plescia J.B., Shoemaker E.M. & Shoemaker C.S. 1991. Gravity survey of the Mt. Toondina impact structure, South Australia. Lunar and Planetary Science Conference XXII, 1079–1080. Abstract
^ Plescia J.B., Shoemaker E.M. & Shoemaker C.S. 1994. Gravity survey of the Mount Toondina impact structure, South Australia. Journal of Geophysical Research 99E, 13167–13179.