Obolon'
Key facts
- Country
- Ukraine
- Diameter
- 20 km
- Age
- about 169 ± 7 million years
- Location
- 49.58° N, 32.92° E
Nothing: the crater is buried beneath farmland in Poltava Oblast, central Ukraine.
Obolon' is a buried impact crater about 20 km across in Poltava Oblast, central Ukraine, named after a nearby village.
Discovery. The structure was found in the 1970s during drilling and geophysical surveys of the region. Boreholes met breccia and impact melt rock beneath younger sediments. Shock features in minerals from these rocks, including quartz with planar deformation features, confirmed an impact.
What it hit. The impactor struck the northern edge of the Ukrainian Shield, where ancient crystalline rocks were covered by a sequence of Palaeozoic and early Mesozoic sediments. The crater was later buried by younger sediments, mainly Jurassic and Cretaceous marine layers, which protected it.
Age. Argon dating of the melt rock gives an age of about 169 million years, in the Middle Jurassic, with an uncertainty of about 7 million years.
Why it matters. Obolon' is the largest known impact structure in Ukraine after Boltysh. The impactor is unknown.
Did you know?
Obolon' is one of the largest impact structures in Ukraine.
It was found by drilling in the 1970s.
The crater formed in the Middle Jurassic.