Other Craters from Permian Extinction

3. Other craters from Permian Extinction

There are other craters associated with Permian Extinction:

3.1 Australia

3.1.1 Bedout Crater

The Bedout Crater is located on the Australian coast and is an underwater crater buried in the seabed recently discovered by oil drilling researchers.

- Coordinates of the crater center[1]: 18° S, 119° E

Its estimated age for the impact is 250.1 ± 4.5 million years ago.

It is still in the process of being recognized as the second largest impact crater on the planet, behind only the Vredefort Crater in South Africa – at least until the publication and confirmation of this study.

Its proposed age is coincident with the Permian Extinction.

According to other study by the author, its original point of impact/hotspot corresponds to the origin of the more recent Ninety East Ridge.

The ancient Permian ridge leads to Bedout crater, but a new path was created when the hotspot was reactivated about 90 million years ago during the passage of the Indian Plate border over the ancient hotspot.

As a plate border fracture, its lava flow is extremely smooth, since it is not necessary to break up the Earth’s crust to reach the surface.

3.2 Asia

3.2.1 Arghanaty A and B Craters

Other significant craters for this study are in Siberia, Arghanaty region. The Russian researchers who identified it measured a diameter of 300 km.

However, my observations point to two craters in this region:

- Arghanaty A Crater, diameter of 550 km, coordinates of the extreme north point: 53° 47’ 15 " N, 68° 46’ 46 " E

- Arghanaty B Crater, diameter 115 km, coordinates of the extreme north point: 49° 20’ 06” N, 69° 13' 03” E

3.2.2 The great Tarim Crater hidden in plain sight on the Tibetan Plateau

There is another significant crater possibly related to the Permian Extinction. 

Update: In 2021 scientists dated the basaltic spill at Tarim as 291 ± 4 Ma old, what makes it near coincident to the Carboniferous extinction.

It is fully visible on Google Earth and it is currently known as the Tarim Basin, adjacent to the Tibetan Plateau, China.

- Coordinates of the extreme north point of Tarim Basin: 41° 03’ 58 " N, 84° 18’ 26 " E

The Tarim Basin is a bizarre geological anomaly and it is one of the most misleading geological occurrences on the planet – it represents only half of the history of that impact event.

Image: Google Earth

The remnants of the real crater are located at the point of impact and are signaled by the circle of karst lakes that occupy most of the Tibetan Plateau.

- Coordinates of northernmost point of the Tarim Crater’s circle of karst lakes: 37° 18’ 10” N, 86° 16' 35” E

The oblong shape of the basin formed by the crater rim results from the displacement and deformation imposed by the recent (geologically) collision of the Indian Plate against the Eurasian Plate.

In addition to elevating the Himalayas mountain range, this collision altered the shape and position of the crater rim relative to its original position.

However, the plateau’s karst lakes point to the perfect circularity and 750 km diameter of the original Tarim Crater, and are fully visible in Google Earth.

Despite its significant size, there is no lava spill directly associated with this crater.

There are no lava flows in its immediate vicinity, which is explainable because the Tibetan Plateau is one of the thickest regions of the Earth's crust — eventual lava spills that possibly have occurred south to the crater have disappeared below the Himalayas during their orogenesis.

So far there is no evidence that allow dating the occurrence of the Tarim impact, but the relatively preserved appearance, their proximity and alignment with the lava flow in Siberia and Arghanaty A and B Craters point to an recent event, not earlier than the Permian Extinction.

When compared to the Viluy Crater, age of 360 million years, associated to the Devonian Extinction (another study by the author), it is remarkable how well preserved is the appearance of the rim at Tarim Basin.[2]

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[1] There is no information on whether these coordinates refer to the center or to the northern end of the crater, and so it cannot be visually confirmed.

[2] Viluy Traps presently are not associated to an impact crater. However, it shows characteristics that permit the hypothesis, primarily its circular shape, and the fact that paleomaps show its original position exactly coinciding with the circular volcanic province under the Mediterranean Sea and Italian Peninsula.

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