Kursk
Key facts
- Country
- Russia
- Diameter
- 6 km
- Age
- about 250 ± 80 million years
- Location
- 51.70° N, 36.00° E
Nothing: the structure is buried beneath the city of Kursk and the surrounding farmland, in western Russia.
Kursk is a buried impact structure about 6 km across beneath the city of Kursk, in western Russia.
Discovery. The Kursk region is famous for the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly, one of the largest iron-ore deposits on Earth, and it has been explored with thousands of boreholes. During this exploration, geologists found a round structure in which the crystalline basement was broken and overlain by breccia. Shock features in minerals from the breccia proved an impact.
What it hit. The impactor struck crystalline basement rocks of the East European Craton, more than 2 billion years old, covered by a layer of sediments. The crater was later buried by younger sediments.
Age. The age is poorly known. It is usually given as about 250 million years, but with a large uncertainty of about 80 million years either way.
Why it matters. Kursk is another example of a crater found only because a region was explored intensively for minerals. The impactor is unknown.
Did you know?
Kursk was found during exploration of one of the world's largest iron-ore regions.
The structure lies beneath the city of Kursk.
Its age is uncertain by about 80 million years.