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Abstract LPSC 2024
Introduction
The Chiemgau impact smaller craters
The Chiemgau impact larger craters
Discussion and Conclusions
Paradigm Shift in Impact Research: The Holocene Chiemgau Meteorite Impact Crater Strewn Field and the Digital
Terrain Model
Kord Ernstson and Jens Poßekel
University of Würzburg, 97074 Würzburg, Germany (kernstson@ernstson.de), Geophysik Poßekel Mülheim, Germany (possekeljens@gmail.com)
At present, according to the Canadian database, roughly 200 craters are
considered to be established impact structures worldwide, whereby the
criteria for acceptance - for and against - are often regarded as extremely
subjective, practiced by a very small university group, but strangely enough
are regularly used as a standard in the literature. This circumstance and
completely new methods argue for a paradigm shift in impact research,
which in particular makes all previous impact statistics, including those on
the threat to the Earth from cosmic collisions, appear to be scientific waste.
For about 20 years, the enormous, elliptically shaped crater
strewn field of roughly 60 km x 30 km in size in south-
eastern Germany has been scientifically investigated using
methods of geology, geophysics, mineralogy-petrography,
geochemistry, geomorphology and archeology/history after
its discovery, and is now considered an established
Holocene impact event due to the clear and extensive impact
evidence generally recognized in impact research [1-4].
More than 150 rimmed craters with diameters ranging from a
few meters to a current maximum of 1,300 meters have been
documented in the Bronze Age/Iron Age (900-600 B.C.)
dated strewn field. Impact research in the strewn field was
given a very special boost by the now free online access to
the Digital Terrain Model. The DTM (DGM 1 in Germany) is
available and can be downloaded for free for the complete
impact strewn field as a compilation of roughly 1,500 tiles of
1 km x 1 km size each and has been used in this study in
highest resolution with a 1 m grid and a vertical resolution of
10 cm (DGM 1), which by interpolation may even be
reduced In many respects the unsurpassable advantage of
The Schatzgrube #001 crater exhibits the basic
characteristics and elements of most strewn field craters
exemplarily (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2. Data processing of the Schatzgrube #001 crater. In
particular the gradient curves in the lower part prove the
incredibly strong circularity even in details (arrows)
The official listing of established, officially recognized impact
structures in databases (e.g. Canadian Earth Impact
Database) currently counts around 200 mentions, which are
also reflected in various listing publications [7-9]. These lists
are not universally accepted in impact research (e.g. [10])
and are regarded as misleading because they ignore
impacts that have been established for decades, but also
new results of impact research. The existing lists in the
databases and articles are based on the criteria of the
standard literature and forget that new findings and ideas on
impact events also affect very important points, which in
particular concern the previously formulated statistics on
terrestrial impact frequency, the resulting threat of
underestimated collision probabilities and the defensive
measures that have been increasingly discussed recently.
The reasons for a rethink in this respect are increasing
findings on previously neglected impact events caused by
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