Steinheim Crater (Angela Keen - USW)
The Steinheim crater is the smaller partner to the Ries crater. It is located in Alb, Steinheim. It is thought that the two craters were formed 15million years ago. However, there are two theories to how the Steinheim crater formed; either a double meteorite or a 150m fragmentation of one larger impactor as it collided with the earth to form the 24km Reis crater. In either theory, the impactor travelled at around 7.2x104 km/hour impacted the Earth. This meteorite collided with the earth with a similar amount of energy as 100,000 Hiroshima bombs. It is thought that the meteorite hit the earth’s crust at an angle between 30 and 50 degrees which, on impact, caused the pressure to increase by a million bar. As the pressure rises, the temperature also increases to 30,000 degrees causing rocks to disintegrate.
The Steinheim crater is a typical complex crater. This means it has a central uplift in the centre of the crater. The central uplift has been measured to be around 1000m in diameter and be 50m above the basin floor, and the crater itself being 3.8 km in diameter and the sides measuring to ~100m deep. However according to gravity researchers, the crater could in fact be double the size!