Around the planet, there are a number of incredibly large impact craters due to ancient impact
events.
One example includes the 100 kilometer Manicouagan Reservoir crater located in eastern Canada,
which is large enough to be visible from satellite.
An even larger 180 kilometer wide impact crater is located adjacent to the Yucatan peninsula,
which directly caused the extinction of the non avian dinosaurs.
This impact was so large that it even caused volcanism on the opposite side of the planet.
Yet, there is a far larger and much older crater located on the planet.
Located within South Africa is a large circular feature visible from orbit.
However, this ring structure only represents a mere fraction of its overall size.
What I am referring to is the 300 kilometer wide Vredefort Crater, which represents the
largest confirmed impact crater on the planet.
It is of particular interest as its formation is loosely correlated with the largest deposit
of platinum on the planet.
Today, 95% of the world's platinum reserves are mined adjacent to this vast crater, which
seemingly formed at approximately the same time.
This video will discuss this massive impact crater and how it formed.
Vredefort Crater is located in eastern South Africa where it is centered around the town
of Vredefort.
Johannesburg and Pretoria are located on the edge of this large structure.
This crater originated 2.023 billion years ago, meaning that it is one of the oldest
visible impact structures on the planet.
At this stage in Earth's geologic history, there were very few complex lifeforms on the
planet.
Although life did exist, it largely consisted of blue and green colored cyanobacteria.
Sometimes, large colonies of these primitive organisms would group together to form mound
like structures called stromatolites.
Due to oxygen first appearing en masse in the atmosphere, iron ions in the oceans combined
with oxygen produced by photosynthetic cyanobacteria.
This turned the oceans red, and deposited alternating layers of red and black compounds
in what is now termed a banded iron formation.
At the time, the planet had 14.5 hour days and there was only 4% of the amount of oxygen
in the atmosphere today.
Meanwhile, in the asteroid belt, a massive chunk of rock was on its final approach towards
the planet.
It measured 26 kilometers or 16 mi wide, which was about the size of the entirety of New
York City.
This asteroid was iron and platinum rich, as it represented a large section of core
from a much larger asteroid.
Soon, this asteroid began burning up in the planet's atmosphere, as it was traveling at
16 kilometers per second or 36,000 miles per hour.
Mere moments later, this asteroid struck an area of what is now South Africa which was
the site of a large igneous province.
It contained a massive network of young volcanoes which had recently deposited platinum and
nickel in the landscape.
This impact generated a massive explosion the likes of which had never been seen before.
It was equivalent in energy to the detonation of 1 quadrillion, 500 trillion tons of tnt.
Within seconds, all ground in a 2,100 kilometer radius ignited due to the intense thermal
radiation.
Then, at the same distance a deadly 1,000 kilometer per hour shockwave raced across
the landscape.
Although trees would not develop for more than 1 billion years, if they had existed
on the planet, the shockwave would have been energetic enough to flatten all trees and
associated vegetation in a 7,000 kilometer radius.
As large chunks of material ejected by the explosion fell back to the planet, a thick
layer of ash was deposited around the globe.
The newly formed crater had carved out a 25 kilometer deep hole, which may have completely
destroyed the entire layer of continental crust at its epicenter.
Large amounts of molten rock soon filled this space, which would take tens of thousands
of years, if not longer, to cool.
This molten rock contained abundant gold, platinum, palladium, and nickel.
This platinum, along with the nearby already platinum rich deposits, later solidified,
forming the largest reserves of this metal on the planet.
I hope that you enjoyed this video!
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