Earth Impact Effects Program

Robert Marcus, H. Jay Melosh, and Gareth Collins

Please note: the results below are estimates based on current (limited) understanding of the impact process and come with large uncertainties; they should be used with caution, particularly in the case of peculiar input parameters. All values are given to three significant figures but this does not reflect the precision of the estimate. For more information about the uncertainty associated with our calculations and a full discussion of this program, please refer to this article

Your Inputs:

Distance from Impact: 150.00 meters ( = 491.00 feet )
Projectile diameter: 45.70 meters ( = 150.00 feet )
Projectile Density: 8000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 1.61 km per second ( = 1.00 miles per second )
Impact Angle: 90 degrees
Target Density: 2500 kg/m3
Target Type: Sedimentary Rock

Energy:

Energy before atmospheric entry: 5.19 x 1014 Joules = 123.95 KiloTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth during the last 4 billion years is 1.7 x 103years

Major Global Changes:

The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and loses negligible mass.
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the tilt of Earth's axis (< 5 hundreths of a degree).
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably.

Atmospheric Entry:

The projectile lands intact, with a velocity 1.56 km/s = 0.968 miles/s.
The energy lost in the atmosphere is 3.30 x 1013 Joules = 0.79 x 10-2 MegaTons.

Crater Dimensions:

What does this mean?


Transient Crater Diameter: 519 meters ( = 1700 feet )
Transient Crater Depth: 183 meters ( = 602 feet )

Final Crater Diameter: 648 meters ( = 2130 feet )
Final Crater Depth: 138 meters ( = 453 feet )
The crater formed is a simple crater

The floor of the crater is underlain by a lens of broken rock debris (breccia) with a maximum thickness of 64 meters ( = 210 feet ).
At this impact velocity ( < 12 km/s), little shock melting of the target occurs.

Ejecta:

What does this mean?


Most ejecta is blocked by Earth's atmosphere