~ Top 10 Amazing Holes and Craters ~

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Top 10 Amazing Holes and Craters


1. Kimberley Big Hole, South Africa   



Kimberley Big Hole is claimed to be the biggest man-made hole in the world. Named also the Big Hole, Open Mine or Kimberley Mine, it is a result of the diamond fever in the late 19th century that formed what we know today as the leaders of the diamond industry, De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited. Situated in Kimberley, South Africa, its digging began in 1871 and only a year later the diggers run to 50,000 people, many of whom died due to poor sanitary conditions. The hole came down to 215 metres depth, 463 metres wide, and a surface area of about 17 hectares. The total amount of diamonds yielded is 2,722 kg, including the Star Africa diamond, which is the largest cut diamond in the entire world, shaped from a 3,106-carat Cullian. Nowadays it is on display in the Jewel House at the Tower of London as part of the Royal Crown Jewels.

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2. Meteor Crater, Arizona, USA   



The best preserved crater on Earth is located in the northern Arizona desert, USA. It was formed about 50,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch by a small asteroid that hit the Earth. Formerly known as the Canyon Diablo Crater, today it is recognized as the Barringer Crater, named after Daniel Barringer. He was the first man that suggested the hole was formed by a large iron-metallic meteorite. Barringer found no meteoritic iron at the site, but his hypothesis was confirmed in 1960 by Eugene Merle Shoemaker, who had discovered the presence of the minerals coesite and stishovite. This was the key evidence that proved the hole was created by an impact event. The meteorite exploded 150 times stronger than the force of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. The hole measures 1,200 m in diameter and is 170 m deep. It is also surrounded by a rim that rises 45 m above the surrounding area.

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3. Mirny Diamond Mine, Siberia, Russia   



Mirny Diamond Mine was a diamond in the industrial crown of the Soviet Union, located in Mirny, Eastern Siberia, Russia. It was discovered in 1955 by two Soviet geologists, who found traces of the volcanic rock kimberlite, named after the town of Kimberley in South Africa where the diamond rush began in late 19th century. The rock sometimes contains diamonds and they surely knew that well as in the 1960s the mine was producing 2,000 kg of diamonds per year. The largest diamond found in the mine weighed 342.5 carats and was found in 1980. The hole, which is 525 m deep and has a diameter of 1200 m, was closed in June 2001. Nowadays it is operated by the largest diamond producing company in Russia called Alrosa. No helicopters are allowed to operate above the mine as they can be sorryed by the air flow of the hole.

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4. Wolfe Creek Crater, Australia   



This 300,000 years old crater in Western Australia is 900 meters in diameter and 150 meters deep. Called Wolfe Creek Crater and referred to as "Kandimalal" in the native Djaru language, this crater is attractive to both scientist and tourists. Iron meteorite have been found littered kilometres away  from the crater as a 50,000 tonne meteorite is believed that have crushed into the earth with a speed of 15 km per second. The second largest crater in the world was found during an aerial survey in 1947 and is located 105 km south of Halls Creek, Western Australia. It is named after the local watercourse, Wolf Creek. The Djaru legend says that two rainbow snakes created the nearby Sturt Creek and Wolfe Creek and one of the snakes emerged from the ground thus forming the crater. The site is protected by Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater National Park and offers camping facilities.

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5. The Door to Hell, Turkmenistan   



This is what happens when you play with fire. Literally. According to the reports during drilling in the 1970s Soviet geologists found an underground cavern filled with rich deposits of natural gas and decided to burn it off. They thought the fire would use the fuel in a few days, but today its still burning. This is the so called "Door to Hell", located in the Derweze area in the middle of the Karakum desert, Turkmenistan.  The crater, which is about 60 meters in diameter and 20 meters deep, fills the air with the smell of burning sulphur and can be seen glowing from kilometres away in the night. It became an exotic tourist attraction and nowadays many people visit the area. You can stay only a few minutes near the edge of the man-made crater. In 2010 the president of Turkmenistan ordered closing of the hole, but the "Door to Hell" is still open. Nobody knows for how long.

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6. Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah, USA   



The largest open-pit mine in the world and worlds largest manmade excavation is located in Salt Lake County, Utah. Known also as the Kennecott Copper Mine, it has been in production since 1906. Copper was discovered by two brothers, Sanford and Thomas Bingham, in 1848, but the extraction started fourteen years later. Railroad reached the canyon in 1873 and 15,000 people had settled the area which boosted minerals extraction in the mine. Later the population decreased as the technology improved. Today the mine is still working and even a mine expansion was started in 2005. One of the most productive mines in the 20th century was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966. The Kennecott Copper Mine is 1.2 km deep, 4 km wide and it is the second largest copper producer in USA. An interesting fact is that the mine is visible from outer space.

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7. Kaali Crater, Estonia   



Kaali group is called one of the youngest meteorite craters formed by impact event, only 4000 ago. They are located on the island of Saaremaa, Estonia. A meteorite with mass of about 10,000 tons broke into pieces at an altitude between five and ten kilometres and fell in several locations in a loosely populated forested site. The craters are nine in total and the biggest one, which is 110 meters wide and 22 meters deep, is called the Kaali Crater. Today it looks like a perfectly round-shaped lake, covered with vegetation and trees around its rim. Its water level changes through the seasons, as well as its diameter, ranging from 30 to 60 m. The depth of Lake Kaali is between one and six meters. Its rim was used as a fortress in the Middle Ages, when a 470 meters long wall was built. For a long time the Kaali Crater served as a place of offering for the local people.

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8. Morning Glory Pole, Wyoming, USA   



Yellowstone Park is widely known for its wildlife and geothermal features. One of these features is called Morning Glory Pole, named in 1880 after the morning glory flower. This hot spring pool has a distinctive colour due to bacteria in the water, although it might have lost its colour some time ago, when the Grand Loop Road passed nearby. Many visitors threw coins and garbage or caused damage to the pool which resulted in cooling of the pool and loss of thermal energy. Unfortunately this beautiful pool was vandalized and its typical orange and yellow bacteria, which used to colour the periphery of the Morning Glory Pole, now shrink toward the centre of the spring. Not a surprise its new name is "Fading Glory" as its beautiful colour is constantly fading and turning into greenish brown. On several occasions in the past, especially after an earthquake, Morning Glory Pole used to erupt as a geyser. Hopefully its ecosystem will gradually restore.

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9. Upheaval Dome, Utah, USA   



The origin of Upheaval Dome, a circular structure in Utahs Canyonlands National Park, USA, has been controversially discussed for decades. Nowadays after long scientific research had been conducted the evidence proved that it is an impact structure formed by a meteorite. In the beginning a Salt Dome theory was implied, but in 1993, Eugene Shoemaker and Ken Herkenhoff found shatter cones in the Upheaval Dome, which are formed usually after a meteorite crushes into the Earths surface. The meteor impact theory was confirmed in 2008 when shocked quartz was discovered. This quartz is formed under intense pressure and can be found inside meteorite impact craters. They were found by two German researches not in the middle, but off to the side of the crater, which suggests that there was an angle collision. The Upheaval Dome is believed to be less than 170 million years old. It is about 5 km in diameter.

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10. Gosses Bluff Crater, Australia   



As Australian surface is very, very old, many impact craters are still present. About 160 km west of Alice Springs, near the western end of the MacDonnell Range; one can see the Gosses Bluff Crater, which was formed by an asteroid or a comet about 142 million years ago in the earliest Cretaceous. The original crater was 22 km in diameter, of which only 5 km are exposed today due to erosion. The abundance of shatter cones scattered around the site was a significant prove that is an impact crater. The Western Arrernte Aboriginal people call the site Tnorala and according to their legend a dancing woman in the form of a star in the Milky Way left her baby in a wooden basket, which fell into the earth. They worship the place as sacred and believe that the babys mother is the evening star.