Publication Name: Australasian Exploration Geoscience Conference 2019
Authors: Jayson Meyers*, Sharna Riley, Wesley Groome
Date Published: September 2019
Number of Pages: 5
Abstract:
Detailed airborne electromagnetic (VTEM), gravity and passive seismic HVSR surveying, followed up by RC and diamond drilling, has identified an isolated circular and geologically young meteorite impact crater filled with sediments and located next to the town of Coolgardie in Western Australia. It was discovered in 2017 (Meyers, 2017), is 800 m in diameter and estimated to be >140 m deep based on passive seismic results, because only angled drilling was carried out for gold exploration along the western side of the crater. The crater has been filled with impact debris and sedimentary deposits to form a flat modern topographic feature. The pre-impact bedrock is Archean greenstone, which hosts numerous gold occurrences and mines surrounding the crater. The crater is filled with a polymict impact breccia of mixed greenstone rocks from below and surrounds near its base. A thin (<2 m) tuffaceous looking ejecta layer occurs at the boundary between the impact breccia and underlying in situ brecciated greenstone bedrock (high Mg basalt and ultramafic lava).