- Vepriai crater
Vepriai is the largest
meteorite crater inLithuania , named after the town ofVepriai located at its center. The crater is not exposed to the surface, having been eroded and covered bysedimentary rocks during thelast glacial period .Vepriai crater is convert|8|km|mi|abbr=on in
diameter and its age is estimated to be greater than 160 ± 10 million years (Upper Jurassic or earlier). The meteorite struck softsandstone andlimestone rocks thus its initial depth exceeded convert|500|m|ft|abbr=on but the site was soon covered by sedimentary rocks,sand andclay . A small lake has formed in theJurassic period in the impact site.The crater was reported in 1978, as proven by occurrence of
shatter cone s andimpact glass in drill-core samples acquired during a geophysical research of the locality.Bibliography
*ru icon Masaitis, V. L., Danilin, A.N., Maschak, M.S., Raykhlin, A.I., Selivanovskaya, T.V. and Shadenkov,Ye.M., The Geology of Astroblemes.
Leningrad , Nedra, 231 p. 1980.
*lt icon Motuza, G. B., Gailius, R. P., On presumed astroblemes of Latvia (abstract). 7th Annual Conference of the Committee on Tectonics of Byelorussia and the Baltic Area, Vilnius, pp. 91-94. 1978.
*en Henning Dypvik1 "et al", "Impact structures and events - A Nordic perspective", Episodes, vol. 31 No. 1, March2008 ( [http://www.episodes.org/backissues/33igc/15%20Impact%20%20structures-r.pdf PDF] )External links
* [http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/ Earth Impact Database]
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