Avak impact crater, Alaska; discovered by US Navy in 1943
The Avak crater is a buried structure of about 12 km diameter.
Avak is a subcircular structure about 8 km (5.0 mi) in diameter and 1 km (0.62 mi) deep. In the structure, metamorphic basement rocks and regionally flat lying sedimentary rocks are uplifted and intensely deformed. The Avak structure has no surface expression in the swampy, lake-dotted tundra of the Arctic coastal plain.
The structure is covered by a thin veneer of permanently frozen Pliocene and Pleistocene rock. This means that the age of the impact took place anywhere between 95 million and 3 million years ago. The identified ejecta suggests a Middle–Late Turonian age of the impact (about 90 million years ago).
The Avak structure provides the structural trap for the natural gas in the adjacent South Barrow and East Barrow gas fields. These fields have accumulated about 37 bcf of natural gas.
History
The Avak structure was first recognized from seismic surveys in the National Petroleum Reserve No. 4 (NPR4) by the U.S. Navy between 1943 to 1953. The Navy drilled the Avak 1 well in 1951–1952, and encountered deformed rocks from near the surface to a total depth of 1,225 m (4,019 ft). Shatter cones and other evidence of impact origin was found.
In 1995, geologists from the Geological Survey of Canada and U.S. Geological Survey found another group of mineralogic features that indicated that Avak is a meteorite impact structure: the planar deformation features.
Without the identification and publication of unambiguous diagnostic evidence of hypervelocity impact in a scientific (preferably peer reviewed) context, a geological structure is not a confirmed impact crater.
The impact origin of each site listed on this website has been supported by rigorous scientific work that has been subsequently published in an appropriate context.
This section is not meant to provide an exhaustive list of such published evidence, but rather to demonstrate that appropriate work has been done.
C.E. Kirschner, Arthur Grantz, and M.W. Mullen (May 1992). “Impact Origin of the Avak Structure, Arctic Alaska, and Genesis of the Barrow Gas Fields”. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin 76 (5): 651–679.
Therriault, A. M. & Grantz, A. (1995). “Planar Deformation Features in Quartz Grains from Mixed Breccia of the Avak Structure, Alaska”. Abstract. LPSC 26: 1043.
Nature of diagnostic evidence:
- multiple sets of PDFs in quartz
- shatter cones
Other significant evidence: Morphology, breccias, shock mosaicism in quartz, planar fractures in quartz.
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See more here: impactcraters.us
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
One reason I began reading this article is I didn’t know what an Avak Impact Crater actually was. I began this comment because I read: “The structure is covered by a thin veneer of permanently frozen Pliocene and Pleistocene rock. This means that the age of the impact took place anywhere between 95 million and 3 million years ago. The identified ejecta suggests a Middle–Late Turonian age of the impact (about 90 million years ago).” Because I doubted the proposed age of the crater.
Then I focused upon “The structure is covered by a thin veneer of permanently frozen Pliocene and Pleistocene rock.” The key word being “permanently”. For as I continued reading I saw the image, which shows that surface of the thin veneer, is not even covered by ice.
Another reason for this comment is I like to compare the observed Science with the Science which is written about in the HOLY BIBLE. So I want to clearly state that I interpret the 6 days of Genesis to sometimes be eras and not literal 24 hour days. Hence I have no problem with rocks which may be millions of years old. Of course, this interpretation is only my opinion (a Belief).
Have a good day, Jerry
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Mark Tapley
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Hello Jerry:
None of the many dating system have proven accurate. There have been cases where newly created lava formations were tested to be millions of years old. Dinosaurs are also said to have been extinct for 65 million years, but several un associated paleontology teams have now found T. Rex bones with ligaments, soft tissue and even remains of blood vessels. These discoveries were in Montana (where all T. Rex are found) and not in the frozen tundra of the arctic. Obviously they are much younger than claimed.
The meteorite in this article was found at the surface, as all of them are. This is another indication of a young earth not millions of years old. As to the Bible, it is either right or it is not. The universe and it’s many irreducible systems from the stars to the tiniest creatures could have only been created by an intelligent being. All living organisms require the input of information similar to a computer program. This cannot take place randomly. I refer you to Dr. Werner Gitt’s book “In The Beginning Was Information.” Gitt begins by showing a magnified image of a common spider and its intricately designed and reinforced web. This complex creature and its engineering feat is the the result of coded information that could not have evolved. No matter how much time the evolutionists claim.
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Alcheminister
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It might just be that paleontology is fraudulent.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
Richard Feynman wrote: “My father taught me to notice things.” (“What Do You Care What Other People Think?”). Lane Cooper wrote: “When the question was put to Agassiz, “What do you regard as your greatest work?’ he replied: “I have taught men to observe.’ And in the preamble to his will he described himself in three words as “Louis Agassiz, Teacher.’ “ (Louis Agassiz As A Teacher)
I only learned to notice and observe things after I had read how he taught some of his students to observe. As a couple of these students described, in their own words, the first assignments he had given each of them. And about the same time I had read Cooper’s book; I had finally read Crew and de Salvio’s English translation (1914) of Galileo’s book, written (1638) in the common Italian language. So I was prepared to notice what Galileo, a teacher, has written in a Dialogue fashion. For Galileo’s contemporaries (Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler) were not teachers as well as being SCIENTISTS who quantitatively observed and mathematically analyzed as Galileo did.
I have written my essays and comments, which seem to be generally ignored as Galileo’s book seems to have been ignored, because I am a SCIENTIST and a TEACHER as Galileo was. And I have observed some common things, just as Galileo had; which we both have observed that seems not yet common knowledge. And in fact we both observe accepted knowledge that is absolutely wrong as proven by common observations (sometimes quantitative measurements).
Most of you PSI readers should know what accepted common knowledge Galileo’s observations proved to be absolutely wrong but there is still little evidence that the observed fact that the Earth’s atmospheric temperature has never been lower than the atmosphere’s dew point temperature (both measured at the same place and time0 proves that the measured atmospheric temperature can never be 33C less as predicted by the idea known as the Greenhouse Effect. And another absolutely wrong scientific idea wrong according to Darwin’s idea about this thing we term life. Which proposes tha presently living organisms required millions, if not billions of years to evolve by millions, if not billions of tiny changes, Foe it is alway observed that birds require both a male and female birds and that the eggs laid by the female bird must be inculcated (kept near the bird’s ‘normal’ temperature for little birds to hatch from the first egg that was laid.
And if I do not continue to draw these common observation (measurements, which required someone had to have invented the thermometer) to your attentions, who will??? So, I will keep writing and submitting comments such as this until there is more evidence that someone is accepting the TRUTH that has been observed and/or measured with invented instruments.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Michael Clarke
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Hi Jerry and PSI readers,
Your Dogmatic preponderous references to the Old Testament is getting in the way of your comments.
Less of the ‘Bible’ and more FACTS!
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSi Readers,
On the header of this article I noticed, on the sides of the Avak impact crater, the words “South Barrow Gas Fields” and “North Barrow Gas Fields”. Recently I have read some authors have questioned if this gas (methane, CH4) is actually a “fossil fuel”.
As a chemist I ask: Given that the Holy Bible refers to the matter we term water before the Creator God even stated: “let there be light”, why couldn’t, at THE BEGIINING, there have been the simple gas molecules: methane, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, etc., etc. as well as water H2O?
Have a good day, Jerry
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