The Impact Crater in Australia; Hickman Crater

Within Western Australia there are a number of geologic oddities, owing to much of the host rock being 2 to 3 billion years in age. However, there are also an assortment of very young and very old impact craters. One of these craters was only discovered in 2007, when a local geologist discovered a 260 meter wide depression in the ground while browsing Google Earth. Known as Hickman Crater, this well preserved impact structure originated a mere 50,000 years ago and is linked to a dense iron nickel meteorite.

NOTE: Several roads on the way to visit this crater are NOT public access! Travelling on them may result in trespassing and thus should not be attempted without permission from private land owners.

Google Earth imagery used in this video: ©Google

Citations:

Creative Commons Licenses:

Thumbnail Photo Credit: Google Earth, 2022 CNES / Airbus

GPS Coordinates: 23° 2'13.81"S, 119°40'59.83"E

0:00 Geologic Features in Australia
0:40 Discovery of Hickman Crater
1:06 Age of the Crater
1:29 Asteroid Size
2:28 Impact Effects
3:30 Accessing the Crater

[GeologyHub]

NOTE: Several roads on the way to visit this crater are NOT public access! Travelling on them may result in trespassing and thus should not be attempted without permission from private land owners.

Due to large sections of Australia being covered in Precambrian and Archean rock, it has a surprisingly high number of impact craters. However, Australia is also truly massive and large sections of it have not been directly explored. There is a good chance that more similarly sized impact features remain, waiting to be discovered from google earth (and not just in Australia).

[nzldudeDNB]

Ive been to this crater! I work as a geologist for a mining company with exploration tenements around this part of the Pilbara. Crater location is off BHP's Newman to Port Headland rail access. We had heard about this back in 2012 and took about 3 hours but found it. Did not realise the impact was so young in comparison to the surrounding landscape.

[KS-hjxn]

The Tiger Iron was outstanding! I'm sure it is incredibly expensive for a nice slab for a countertop!

[cmonkey]

Thanks for recent videos of Australia, and in particular, Western Australia where I live. Without satellite images many such features would go unknown.

[Headytopper]

Hey Geology Hub I love your video as and have been watching them for quite some time. I’d love to see a video about the great Rift Valley in Africa specifically lake Assal

[Kenjineering]

Once permission is granted, the crater makes for a great camping location! Another cool crater here in Australia is Darwin Crater in Tasmania. Ramsay Ford was the first western scientist to discover it in 1972. He was alerted to the possibility of there being an undiscovered crater somewhere deep in the wilderness after he found tektites while out bushwalking. I believe he managed to locate the impact site by mapping out the spread pattern of tektites i.e., 'Darwin Glass' . At the time it was fondly referred to within the geology department at the University of Tasmania as "Ramsay's hole".

[jacobmalkin]

Loving the concise content. One thing that I would personally love to see is a deep dive into one geologic formation which includes background, debated theories, and scientific literature in addition to the summary of the features formation. For example, in this video you mention that the methodology for dating the crater had a high margin for error. I would love details about different dating methodologies and their results for a feature and why you may place more stock in one method. Anyway, great stuff and I will continue to eat up the 4 min videos like candy.

[jayjaynella]

Back in the 1990s My family and I visited an above ground cave near Rockhampton. There was a 1 metre tree above that had a 50mm root extending down into the cave, went through the ceiling of the cave, kept going down the cathedral ceiling, and then went another 35 m into the cave floor. The cathedral ceiling made fantastic acoustics and was used by several artists, John Denver being one, as a recording studio. This dry cave would be a great topic for GH to cover in a video. Tour guide put on 2 songs I requested, Amazing Grace and Also Sprach Zarathustra from the 2001 space odyssey movie. And then he turned out the lights. 2 10 watt speakers surrounded you with sound, it was so awesome that there was great music in the total darkness. Best cave tour I ever had.

[joyleenpoortier]

Please do a story on Gosses bluff very close to Alice Springs NT. A truely beautiful crater.

[ausnorman]

Thanks! Love finding out about Australia's geological past :)

[chirwub]

you could make an interesting video on the seattle fault zone. their is visible uplift from a major earthquake a little over a thousand years ago in the puget sound off Alki point and south Bainbridge island. Also a recent study found the faults on the base of the puget sound and lake washington are constantly emitting methane and nobody knows why. very mysterious!

[relwaretep]

At 50, 000 years old there's a very real possibility that humans were living nearby when the impact happened (and thus likely that the memory of the event remains in Dreamtime stories)

[XanCalGil]

Cool video. I love hearing about these random things in Australia. Living there you never get even a remote chance to truly appreciate the amazing geo diversity

[rustymotor]

Live and work and travel throughout central Australia, such a vast and mostly unoccupied area. I am sure if someone had plenty of time to go exploring you would most likely find Meteorites on the ground surface. One old fella I know does a lot of metal detecting searching for gold with some success however he also has found metal lumps buried in the soil. Seems to be iron as it attracts a magnet and being found in remote areas it is unlikely to be man made. Certainly thinking the pieces could be a type of meteorite.

[davidgrech]

Thank you for your wonderful video and hope you have a blessed week ahead 🙏🌎

[aleksejunas]

Thank you, due to your videos i found geology really fascinating and it added another layer of perception about the ground i live on

[kimberchick]

Fantastic! I love that there's still more to discover on Earth. Thanks for the video.

[raideurng]

Australia has some weird geology, but everytime I look at Tasmania, it easily takes the cake. I assume it's just as old, but has been brutally deformed into some truly bizarre shapes.

[davec]

Where was Australia located 50 m years ago, moving away from Pangea and weather about that time thank you ALL stay safe

[floffycatto]

Wow, what a work of art nature is sometimes