Table of contents:
- Where is the Popigai crater and when was it discovered?
- One of the culprits of global extinction
- What is the uniqueness of the Popigai impact crater
- What feature of the Popigai crater has been kept secret for more than 40 years
- Prospects for the Popigai crater as a deposit of impactites
Video: Why in the USSR the place of the fall of a meteorite larger than the Tunguska one was kept secret for a long time
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Few people in Russia do not know about the legendary Tunguska meteorite that fell into the Siberian taiga at the beginning of the 20th century. But about a much larger one, Popigaysky, not many have heard for sure. Although this meteorite, having arrived on the planet about 35 million years ago, left a giant crater over 100 kilometers in diameter on Siberian land. Where the Popigai meteorite fell, what are the features of it and the crater left by it, and why for many years some information about this astro problem was kept secret - all this is detailed in this material.
Where is the Popigai crater and when was it discovered?
The crater with a diameter of more than 100 km and a depth of 200 m, like the meteorite itself that left it, got its name from the name of the river and the small Siberian settlement of the same name Popigai. It is located on the borders of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Republic of Yakutia. The center of the Popigai astro-problem (as the crater is often called in scientific circles) is located 30 km from the village itself, which is the only one within the meteorite crater.
For the first time, the Popigai depression was discovered and described by the researcher D. V. Kozhevin back in 1946. However, then no one imagined that the basin was a real impact meteorite crater. For the first time such an assumption, after a more careful study, was put forward in 1970. The thing is that during the analysis of the soil, as well as the bare rock in the area of the Variegated Rocks, scientists found traces of melting and crushing of the rock. And this is typical for impact meteorite craters.
One of the culprits of global extinction
The Popigai Astro Problem is one of the largest impact craters ever discovered on planet Earth. In terms of size, it shares the 4th place in the world with the Manicouagan crater in Canada. Studies have shown that the Popigai impact crater was formed at about the same epoch with a number of other similar “depressions” scattered throughout the planet: in Europe, the USA, Canada and Mexico. All these craters are evidence of the meteorite bombardment of the Earth during the Oligocene.
Paleontologists claim that at that time the temperature on the planet dropped sharply by several degrees. This, in turn, caused the death of representatives of many species of the animal and plant world of that era. Consequently, the Popigai meteorite was one of the culprits of the Eocene-Oligocene extinction that occurred on the planet about 35 million years ago.
What is the uniqueness of the Popigai impact crater
As a result of studies of the Popigai impact crater, geologists and astrophysicists came to the conclusion that the meteorite, or rather the asteroid, which left such a scar on the planet's surface, was many times larger than the Tunguska meteorite that exploded in the sky over Siberia on June 30, 1908. The size of the Popigai asteroid, as well as the fact that it, unlike the Tunguska one, did not explode in the atmosphere, but collided with the planet, made it possible for very unusual minerals to form in its crater.
Studies of the Popigai astro-problem showed that at the moment of the meteorite impact in the area of its fall, very unique conditions from the point of view of physics were created: the temperature at the points of contact rose to about 4 thousand degrees Celsius, and the pressure at the same moment was 1.5 million atmospheres. As a result of the combination of such factors, the graphite in the neck of the crater turned into impactites - meteorite diamonds.
What feature of the Popigai crater has been kept secret for more than 40 years
After the discovery of 2 abundant deposits of meteorite diamonds in the Popigai crater, information about it passed into the category, if not “top secret”, then certainly “not for general use”. According to experts, the Impactite deposit “Udarnoye” contains about 7 billion carats of meteorite diamonds. The Skalnoye deposit has even more abundant reserves of this mineral, where impactites, according to geologists, contain at least 140 billion carats.
It was the reserves of meteorite diamonds that made the Popigai crater partly a secret object. A kind of emergency reserve of industrial diamonds. Indeed, due to their structure (impactites are dull and opaque), meteorite diamonds cannot be used in the jewelry industry to make diamonds. However, the hardness and abrasive properties of impactites are an order of magnitude higher than those of natural diamonds. This makes meteorite diamonds ideal for technical uses.
Impactite deposits in Popigai crater were discovered back in 1971. However, at that time in the USSR, factories for the production of artificial abrasive materials - synthetic diamonds - were being built with might and main. In addition, the inaccessibility of the territory, as well as the complete absence of any transport infrastructure, made the extraction of Popigai impactites absolutely unprofitable. Consequently, it was decided to postpone the development of the Skalnoye and Udarnoye fields for the future. And just in case, any information about Popigai's wealth was decided to be classified.
Prospects for the Popigai crater as a deposit of impactites
Only in October 2012, the information that the world's largest deposit of impactite meteorite diamonds is located in the Popigai impact crater was made public to the general public. In 2013, the place of deposits of a valuable technical mineral was visited by several scientific expeditions. Scientists have confirmed that the area is rich in zyuvite, a type of rock that contains meteorite diamonds. The so-called impactites or lonsdaleites.
In view of the fact that industrial diamonds are demanded in many branches of modern production, and also have excellent prospects in the future, Russia has every chance of becoming the world leader in the production of these minerals for quite a long time. Indeed, according to experts, the reserves of meteorite diamonds in the deposits of the Popigai crater will be enough for several millennia of their intensive mining.
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