A comparative analysis of two Early Palaeozoic marine impact structures in Estonia, Baltic Sea: Neugrund and Kärdla

Abstract

Kardla and Neugrund are two Early Palaeozoic offshore impact structures located some 50 km apart along the Estonian coast of the Baltic Sea. They share many similarities but differing features are also found. The Kardla impact structure is located at the NE coast of Hiiumaa Island (58°58’N, 22°46’E). The inner crater has a 4 km rim-to-rim diameter and a c. 130 m high central uplift, surrounded by a ring fault, c. 12 km in diameter. The well-preserved buried inner crater is outlined in the landscape by a circular ridge of uplifted bedrock. The perimeter of the outer crater is outlined on the seafloor by a semicircular ridge of narrow shoals. The variable height of the rim wall (50–240 m above the crystalline basement level) and the asymmetric location of the inner crater is obviously a result of an oblique impact in a layered target and partial collapse of the rim wall. Shortly after the impact in a shallow epicontinental sea during Late Ordovician time (c. 455 My), calcareous biodetritic muds were deposited and the crater was buried. The Neugrund impact structure is located in the seabed at the entrance of the Gulf of Finland (59°20’N, 23°31’E). The inner crater has a 7 km rim-to-rim diameter and the outer limit of the structure passes through the Osmussaar Island to the southwest of the impact centre. The crater was buried in a shallow epicontinental sea with siliciclastic deposition shortly after the impact at Early Cambrian time, c. 535 My. It was partially re-exposed by erosion during Pliocene. The target had a three-layered composition: Precambrian metamorphic rocks covered by Ediacaran and Early Cambrian siliciclastic rocks (c. 150 m) and water (c. 100 m). The structure has been studied with seismoacoustic and sidescan sonar profiling, and by diving and sampling of submarine outcrops. Several hundred samples of impact breccias have been collected and investigated from erratic boulders distributed by glacial action in the west Estonian mainland, islands and sea floor.