Talk:Río Cuarto craters

Questionable statement

with the impact itself having 10 times more explosive energy than the Barringer Crater event and 30 times more than the Tunguska event'

very unlikely, needs verification or removal —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.225.25.208 (talk) 19:37, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Impact origin stated as fact?

In the article, the opening: "The Río Cuarto craters are a group of impact craters located in Córdoba Province, Argentina." states this as if it is a fact. It is by no means certain that this is an impact crater field. Look at this NGC article: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/05/0509_020509_glassmeteorite.html 2.104.66.152 (talk) 20:08, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

The impact origin of the Río Cuarto structures is controversial. For example, Acevedo et al. (2011) states:

New research indicates an eolian (deflation basins), rather than an impact origin for those elongated depressions. There are nowadays doubts and controversy concerning the original hypothesis of an oblique impact in Río Cuarto. However, it is clear that the glass found at Río Cuarto’s structures is derived from an impact event. It may be a distal, rather than proximal ejecta. Age of glasses was re-estimated in about 570.000 years.

and the Earth Impact Database states:

There is currently some controversy as to whether these structures are actually produced by impacts (Schultz and Lianza, 1992), or by aeolian surficial processes, which form many similar features in that region (Bland et al., 2001, 2002; Melosh, 2002)

On the other hand, Glass and Simonson (2013) regard the Río Cuarto’s structures as being valid impact craters.

References Cited

Acevedo, R. D., M. C. L. Rocca, A. Ocampo, J. Rabassa, J. F. Ponce, and S. Stinco, 2011, Meteorite impact craters and ejecta in South America: a brief review. Revista Brasileira de Geomorfologia - vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 137 - 160.

Glass, B. P. and B. M. Simonson, 2013, Distal Impact Ejecta Layers: A Record of Large Impacts in Sedimentary Deposits. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, Germany. 716 pp. ISBN 978-3-540-88261-9 Paul H. (talk) 12:21, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

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Geological examination of the Rio Cuarto craters has found several pieces of a chondritic meteorite and petrographic evidence of an extraterrestrial impact which cannot result from aeolian processes. The following reference appears to provide convincing evidence of an extraterrestrial impact.

Schultz, P. H., Koeberl, C., Bunch, T., Grant, J. and Collins,W., Ground truth for oblique impact processes: New insight form the Rio Cuarto, Argentina, crater field. Geology, v. 22, pp. 889-892. 1994. http://www.univie.ac.at/geochemistry/koeberl/publikation_list/092-Rio-Cuarto-Geology1994.pdf

Sciencebookworm (talk) 20:11, 5 August 2015 (UTC)