Elbow
Key facts
- Country
- Canada
- Diameter
- 8 km
- Age
- about 395 ± 25 million years
- Location
- 50.98° N, 106.72° W
Nothing: the crater is buried about 2 km beneath the farmland of southern Saskatchewan, near the elbow of the South Saskatchewan River.
Elbow is a buried impact crater about 8 km across in southern Saskatchewan, in Canada, named after the nearby village of Elbow on the bend of the South Saskatchewan River.
Discovery. Like many craters on the Canadian prairies, Elbow was revealed by the search for oil. Seismic surveys showed a round structure with a central uplift and a ring of faulted rock buried deep beneath the plains. Study of the rocks from wells and the shape of the structure established that it was made by an impact.
What it hit. The impactor struck a sequence of Palaeozoic sedimentary rocks, mainly limestones and dolomites, laid down in shallow seas that covered the interior of North America. The crater was later buried by younger sediments, and it now lies roughly 2 km underground.
Age. The age is poorly known. It is usually given as about 395 million years, in the Devonian, but with an uncertainty of about 25 million years either way.
Why it matters. Elbow is one of several buried craters in the Williston Basin, a region rich in oil and gas, where detailed seismic surveys have found more impact structures than almost anywhere else on Earth. The impactor is unknown.
Did you know?
Elbow is named after a village on a sharp bend of the South Saskatchewan River.
It lies about 2 km underground and was found by seismic surveys.
The crater formed in a shallow sea during the Devonian period.