North Pole Dome in the context of "Impact structure"

Play Trivia Questions online!

or

Skip to study material about North Pole Dome in the context of "Impact structure"

Ad spacer

⭐ Core Definition: North Pole Dome

The Miralga impact structure is an impact structure in the Pilbara Craton of Western Australia. With an initially estimated age of around 3.47 billion years dating to the Paleoarchean, it has been suggested to be the oldest known impact structure on Earth by over a billion years and the only one known from the Archean.

The structure is found in the East Pilbara Terrane, one of the oldest parts of the Pilbara Craton. The structure lies on a geological dome called the North Pole Dome which was initially suggested to represent the central uplift of the structure. Evidence of the impact is shatter cones found in the Antarctic Creek Member, a 20 metres (66 ft) thick layer of sedimentary rock including "felsic to mafic volcaniclastic rocks, chert, argillite, arenite and jaspilite intruded by dolerite", sandwiched between overlying and underlying volcanic rocks of the Mount Ada Basalt Basalt, which is 2–3 kilometres (1.2–1.9 mi) thick.

↓ Menu

>>>PUT SHARE BUTTONS HERE<<<
In this Dossier

North Pole Dome in the context of Dresser Formation

The Dresser Formation is a Paleoarchean geologic formation that outcrops as a generally circular ring of hills in the North Pole Dome area of the East Pilbara Terrane of the Pilbara Craton of Western Australia. This formation is one of many formations that comprise the Warrawoona Group, which is the lowermost of four groups that comprise the Pilbara Supergroup. The Dresser Formation is part of the Panorama greenstone belt that surrounds and outcrops around the intrusive North Pole Monzogranite. Dresser Formation consists of metamorphosed, blue, black, and white bedded chert; pillow basalt; carbonate rocks; minor felsic volcaniclastic sandstone and conglomerate; hydrothermal barite; evaporites; and stromatolites. The lowermost of three stratigraphic units that comprise the Dresser Formation contains some of the Earth's earliest commonly accepted evidence of life such as morphologically diverse stromatolites, microbially induced sedimentary structures, putative organic microfossils, and biologically fractionated carbon and sulfur isotopic data.

↑ Return to Menu