Vepriai
Key facts
- Country
- Lithuania
- Diameter
- 8 km
- Age
- about 160 ± 10 million years
- Location
- 55.08° N, 24.58° E
Nothing: the structure is buried beneath glacial deposits and farmland in central Lithuania, near the village of Vepriai.
Vepriai is a buried impact structure about 8 km across in central Lithuania, near the village of Vepriai in Ukmergė district.
Discovery. The structure was found during drilling, when boreholes met disturbed rock and breccia instead of the expected flat-lying layers. Later drilling and geophysics outlined a complex crater with a central uplift. Quartz grains in the breccia show shock features, confirming an impact.
What it hit. The impactor struck a sequence of Palaeozoic sedimentary rocks, mainly Devonian and older sandstones, clays and carbonates, over crystalline basement. The rebound of the crater floor raised older rocks in the centre.
Age. The youngest disturbed rocks are early Jurassic and the crater was filled with later Jurassic sediments, giving an age of about 160 million years, in the Middle to Late Jurassic, with an uncertainty of about 10 million years.
Why it matters. Vepriai is the larger of Lithuania's two known impact structures, and one of the youngest in the Baltic region. The impactor is unknown.
Did you know?
Vepriai was found by boreholes that met broken rock instead of flat layers.
It formed in the Jurassic, when dinosaurs dominated the land.
It has a central uplift, now buried.