Have you ever wanted to see a giant impact crater from an asteroid but thought you would have to drive thousands of miles to see it?
If your answer is yes just take a drive to Panther Mountain in the Catskills of New York.
Yes, it is a mountain, but it is also part of an asteroid impact crater. There are a few hills and valleys inside the crater but Panther Mountain is the general identifier.
In the 1970’s a scientist from the New York State Geological Survey (Yngvar Isachsen) was studying an aerial imagery of the Catskills and recognized the following:
“I first noticed this in the early 1970s," he says. "I had a grant from NASA to study features on this image (see below). See all these squiggly lines? These are valleys formed by streams. That's what you'd expect a valley to look like. All squiggly, going in no particular direction. Now here's where we are. That's the valley formed by the Esopus Creek and its tributary, Woodland Creek. It forms an almost perfect circle around Panther Mountain. So I asked myself, what on Earth would account for that?"
Source: http://discovermagazine.com/2000/aug/featcrater < this is also a further and in depth read for those of you that are interested.
I would end up finding this the EXACT same way a few years ago just by browsing around the area on Google Earth.
Can you see it?
If your answer is yes just take a drive to Panther Mountain in the Catskills of New York.
Yes, it is a mountain, but it is also part of an asteroid impact crater. There are a few hills and valleys inside the crater but Panther Mountain is the general identifier.
In the 1970’s a scientist from the New York State Geological Survey (Yngvar Isachsen) was studying an aerial imagery of the Catskills and recognized the following:
“I first noticed this in the early 1970s," he says. "I had a grant from NASA to study features on this image (see below). See all these squiggly lines? These are valleys formed by streams. That's what you'd expect a valley to look like. All squiggly, going in no particular direction. Now here's where we are. That's the valley formed by the Esopus Creek and its tributary, Woodland Creek. It forms an almost perfect circle around Panther Mountain. So I asked myself, what on Earth would account for that?"
Source: http://discovermagazine.com/2000/aug/featcrater < this is also a further and in depth read for those of you that are interested.
I would end up finding this the EXACT same way a few years ago just by browsing around the area on Google Earth.
Can you see it?
Source: Google Maps
So here is the story behind this crater- it is far more exciting that a rock hitting the dirt in some desert somewhere and creating a hole.
Around 375-400 millions years ago the Catskills did not exist yet. The GIGANTIC Acadian Mountains were rising where the present day Taconic Mountains line the east side of the Hudson Valley. As the the Acadian Mountains established themselves they began to erode and weather (pieces broke off).
Around the mountains sediment began to pile up. At the time there was a sea surrounding the Acadians so the sediment stacked up on the shores of the water. A lot of that sediment was washed down into where the Catskills are today (south-central NY). The sea that existed at the time, the Kaskaskia Sea, slowly had its western shore moved farther and farther East due to the sediments falling on the shore.
While this was happening, BOOM, the asteroid hit the Earth right in the sediments on the west edge of the Acadian Mountains. You can see the Acadian mountain range and the Kaskaskia Sea in this image. The asteroid struck just about at the tip of the A in "Acadian."
Around 375-400 millions years ago the Catskills did not exist yet. The GIGANTIC Acadian Mountains were rising where the present day Taconic Mountains line the east side of the Hudson Valley. As the the Acadian Mountains established themselves they began to erode and weather (pieces broke off).
Around the mountains sediment began to pile up. At the time there was a sea surrounding the Acadians so the sediment stacked up on the shores of the water. A lot of that sediment was washed down into where the Catskills are today (south-central NY). The sea that existed at the time, the Kaskaskia Sea, slowly had its western shore moved farther and farther East due to the sediments falling on the shore.
While this was happening, BOOM, the asteroid hit the Earth right in the sediments on the west edge of the Acadian Mountains. You can see the Acadian mountain range and the Kaskaskia Sea in this image. The asteroid struck just about at the tip of the A in "Acadian."
Source: http://www.nvcc.edu
Eventually the uplift that created the Acadian Mountains ceased and the mountains eroded so much that the area that would be the Catskills became taller than the Acadians. Some peaks of this "new" mountain range reached 7,000 feet. Over time the sediments from the Acadian Mountains that washed into the Catskill area turned into solid rock. The weight of the rocks above the crater caused the lower level to fracture and create extremely easy-to-erode joints along the edge. Think of it as if you were to push down with your hand in fresh cement. Your hand is the asteroid and the cement is the sediment from the Acadian Mountains. Once it hardens you would be left with a crater. Fill the crater with pebbles and sand and then push it down with extreme force. The sediment (pebbles and sand) would turn into rock. The edge of where that hand print was will easily break apart if subjected to water. THAT is what happened with the asteroid crater in the Catskills.
But it still wasn't over...the continents of the Earth collided and huge uplift (rising) took place across the land.
The “Catskills,” along with much of the Appalachians, became taller than the Himalayas during this collision with Africa and Europe. The mountains turned into a uniform plateau (flat surface) with only a few peaks. Streams and creeks began cutting the plateau to form valleys. Weathering trimmed down the peaks to a height similar to where they are today.
The third and final transformation came with the ice age 15,000 years ago. Glaciers covered all but probably two peaks in the Catskills (Slide Mountain and West Kill) and ground down their summits and edges. When the glaciers melted they left multiple lakes that many enjoy visiting today. Finally the Catskills looked like they do today.
At the base (inside) of one of these Catskill Mountains is the impact crater. The Esopus Creek slowly eroded away the rocks at the edge of the crater rim (think about the cement example) and cut a perfect circle around the impact crater. The Esopus follows Route 28 on the map above. Unknowingly, early settlers settled down around the giant crater because they were following the river for water and food.
I live near this crater and you do not realize it is a crater at all by driving around it. It simply looks like a beautiful sloping mountain. The reality is that deep beneath the mountains there is a huge hole that probably has remnants of the asteroid that struck hundreds of millions of years ago.
My guess, and this is entirely a guess, is that in the future (100 millions years from now) the Catskill Mountains will erode to the point that the original impact crater is exposed until, again, deposition and erosion creates either a plain over the crater or a new mountain range.
Here is a photo of a part of Panther Mountain that I took in 2009:
But it still wasn't over...the continents of the Earth collided and huge uplift (rising) took place across the land.
The “Catskills,” along with much of the Appalachians, became taller than the Himalayas during this collision with Africa and Europe. The mountains turned into a uniform plateau (flat surface) with only a few peaks. Streams and creeks began cutting the plateau to form valleys. Weathering trimmed down the peaks to a height similar to where they are today.
The third and final transformation came with the ice age 15,000 years ago. Glaciers covered all but probably two peaks in the Catskills (Slide Mountain and West Kill) and ground down their summits and edges. When the glaciers melted they left multiple lakes that many enjoy visiting today. Finally the Catskills looked like they do today.
At the base (inside) of one of these Catskill Mountains is the impact crater. The Esopus Creek slowly eroded away the rocks at the edge of the crater rim (think about the cement example) and cut a perfect circle around the impact crater. The Esopus follows Route 28 on the map above. Unknowingly, early settlers settled down around the giant crater because they were following the river for water and food.
I live near this crater and you do not realize it is a crater at all by driving around it. It simply looks like a beautiful sloping mountain. The reality is that deep beneath the mountains there is a huge hole that probably has remnants of the asteroid that struck hundreds of millions of years ago.
My guess, and this is entirely a guess, is that in the future (100 millions years from now) the Catskill Mountains will erode to the point that the original impact crater is exposed until, again, deposition and erosion creates either a plain over the crater or a new mountain range.
Here is a photo of a part of Panther Mountain that I took in 2009:
As you can see it does not look anything like a crater; however, I promise you, an impact crater that is 375 million years old sits beneath this beautiful piece of geography just waiting to be exposed to the air once again.
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