Did
an asteroid impact form this crater
in Australia's Blue Mountains?
The
continent of Australia has been the
subject of many Picture of the
Day articles. The terrain found in
several regions exhibits features
that are not readily explainable
using conventional theoretical
analysis.
Wilpena Pound,
Uluru, the Olgas, and the
coastal morphology itself seem to
disprove a gradual process of
deposition and erosion over millions
of years. Instead of growing at a
slow and steady pace, many of
Australia's landmarks appear to have
rapidly evolved at some point in the
recent past.
Among
those anomalies are several large
craters scattered through the
landscape.
Gosses Bluff crater and
Wolfe Creek crater are probably
two of the most well-known. However,
as noted in a previous article about
Gooches crater just west of Sydney,
many formations are not listed in
impact site databases. Information
found in local maps or among the
people living in the area will
occasionally suggest that something
other than vulcanism or water flow
created them.
A
case in point is
Wollangambe crater. Although
some published articles refer to it
as an "ancient asteroid impact," it
is not shown in any major list of
Earth impact sites. The Planetary
and Space Science Centre (PASSC)
database does not show it, nor does
it appear in The Astronauts Guide to
Terrestrial Impact Craters or the
listing found at the
Lunar and Planetary Institute.
The
area surrounding Wollangambe is
impressive to even a casual
observer. The crater itself is about
two kilometers in diameter, with an
uplifted central mound dominated by
a shallow depression. Nearby is a
similar structure known as
Mountain Lagoon—again a hummocky
uplift with a central depression in
its peak. In the case of Mountain
Lagoon, there is a lake within the
depression, whereas Wollangambe's
central lowland is marshy.
Straight valleys extend outward in
all directions throughout the
surrounding area. Most are bone dry
with no sign that they were ever
carved by water erosion. The
linearity of the valleys is in
itself not unusual. What is unusual
is that there are places where steep
valleys meet at definite angles:
primarily three of the valleys will
intersect at 120°. In one location,
five straight valleys radiate
from a central confluence. What can
cut valleys 900 meters deep through
the hardest sandstone in this
fashion? Certainly water cannot be
the active agent since there is no
way that it can move straight
through the stone outward from a
common center.
Another example of bizarre terrain
is
Mount Banks. What makes it so
unusual is that almost half of the
mountain has been sliced away by a
vertical escarpment with no debris
at its base. There are no talus
slopes underneath the vegetation
that correspond to the megatons of
rock that are missing. Rather, there
are 45° "shoulders" of solid rock at
the base of the cliff that climbs
vertically for almost 1000 meters.
Similar formations can be found in
the desert southwest of the North
American continent and in
association with the famous "tepuis"
of Amazonia.
A new way of seeing Australia
should be considered. In the last
few years, the Picture of the Day
has included scores of articles
addressing that need. The gradualism
that dominates geological theories
today can only account for these
observations by ignoring key points.
As has been pointed out many times,
where is the material that was
"eroded" from Australia's landscape?
In some locations there are flat
plains extending for thousands of
square kilometers completely
stripped of all overburden, exposing
nothing but barren bedrock. Here and
there in those flat wastelands are
sandstone monoliths standing in
torrid isolation.
Vertical cliffs running for hundreds
of kilometers look as if they were
formed yesterday in some cases. They
are composed of
layers that include sandstone
and ironstone built up into
mountains that have been cut in
half. In many instances the traveler
might be reminded of
Martian geography because of the
aridity and the layered sandstone.
Regardless of where one looks in
Australia, there are ever greater
puzzles to unlock.
Written by Stephen Smith from
information provided by Garry
Maxfield.
Editor's note: Garry Maxfield lives
and works in North Sydney, New South
Wales, Australia. He is an avid bush
trekker, having grown up in the Blue
Mountains. From an early age he had
an interest in astronomy and
geology, but found the answers
provided by conventional science to
be unsatisfying. While investigating
the newly discovered "sprites" and
"elves" electrical phenomena, he
discovered the Thunderbolts website.
This article is a result of his
field work.
