Amelia Creek
Key facts
- Country
- Australia
- Diameter
- 20 km
- Age
- between about 600 and 1,660 million years
- Location
- 20.92° S, 134.83° E
No crater shape: rocky ridges in the Davenport Ranges of the Northern Territory, where shatter cones are exposed over a wide area.
Amelia Creek is a deeply eroded impact structure in the Davenport Ranges of the Northern Territory, Australia, south-east of Tennant Creek. It is estimated to have been about 20 km across.
Discovery. In the early 2000s geologists mapping the area found shatter cones, cone-shaped fractures produced only by the shock of an impact, in outcrops spread over several kilometres. They also found quartz grains with planar deformation features. These confirmed an impact.
What it hit. The impactor struck a sequence of Proterozoic sedimentary and volcanic rocks, more than 1.6 billion years old. These rocks were later folded, so the remains of the crater are tilted and partly hidden.
Age. The impact must be younger than the rocks it struck, about 1.66 billion years old, and older than about 600 million years. The age is therefore very poorly known.
Why it matters. Amelia Creek is one of many ancient impact structures in Australia, a continent with some of the oldest and most stable rocks on Earth. The impactor is unknown.
Visiting. The area is remote. Much of it is on Aboriginal land or pastoral leases; ask permission before entering.
Did you know?
Amelia Creek was found from shatter cones in the early 2000s.
Its age is uncertain by about a billion years.
No crater shape survives.