Quantifying the rate of erosion of simple terrestrial meteorite impact craters

Abstract

<p>The surface of the earth is continuously modified by the action of various active geological agents, and one of the resultant is erosion. Climate, lithology, slope, precipitation, temperature, vegetation and anthropogenic activities are the chief controlling factors of erosional processes. The rate of erosion associated with various geomorphological features has been estimated using several different methods. Meteorite impact craters being a positive relief feature, formed by an impetuous process, thus, is an ideal candidate for quantifying the rate of erosion. Several authors have attempted to quantify the erosion rate with the availability of scanty number of terrestrial impact craters. In this study, apart from taking into account other factors, paleoclimatic parameters have been incorporated to estimate the erosion rate of simple impact craters. The rate of erosion has been quantified in selected terrestrial simple impact craters considering the influence of various climatic zones traversed by the crater in relation to its topographical parameters and the geological province where the crater is located. The temporal range of each crater in distinct paleoclimatic zoneshave been derived to better constrain the influence of climate on erosion. The rate of erosion of the region hosting the impact craters and the individual crater are estimated separately using different methods. In the first method, the relief of the geological province where the crater is located is considered and in the second method, the initial relief of the transient impact crater is calculated using a set of crater morphological parameters. The estimated values of erosion rates of craters are correlated with the published works. The values are found to be similar except for the older craters, which we believe due to the large uncertainties associated with paleoclimatic data. Difference in the erosion rates of older craters can also be attributed to dynamic evolutionary trends of terrestrial simple impact craters pertaining to the influence of various regional elements in the vicinity of the crater including the drainage, tectonic activities, precipitation, temperature and lithology.</p>