Comparison of four meteorite penetration funnels in the Campo del Cielo crater field, Argentina

VESCONI, M.A; WRIGHT, S.P.; SPAGNUOLO, M. G; JACOB, R.; CERRUTTI, C.; GARCIA, L.; FERNANDEZ, E.; CASSIDY, W.A.

Meteoritics and Planetary Science

Wiley-Blackwell.

Año: 2011 vol. 46

1086-9379

More craters may be discovered in the future, but as it is currently known, the Campo del Cielo crater field is 18km long by4km at its widest point. Such a distribution of craters suggests that the parent meteoroid entered and traversed theatmosphere at a very low angle relative to horizontal. The crater field contains at least 20 small craters produced by thelarger fragments of the parent meteoroid. Four of these are explosion analog craters and the rest are penetration funnels.During four field seasons, we have constructed topographic and magnetic maps of four of the penetration funnels as found,and then dug trenches across them to learn their original structures and recover meteorites preserved within them.Structures of these penetration funnels indicate very low angles of impact, i.e., 9-16° relative to horizontal. This supports theidea that the parent meteoroid traversed the atmosphere at a low angle. Data given here for the four penetration funnelsinclude projectile masses, lengths, widths, depths, and estimates of impact angles and azimuths. One of the penetrationfunnels described here (No. 6) can almost be classified as an explosion analog crater. © The Meteoritical Society, 2011.