With over 190 confirmed impact craters having hit Earth, there are a plethora of interesting discoveries! A good example of this being that scientists can roughly determine the age of an impact based upon the size of the crater. Impact craters less than ten thousand years old typically have a diameter of around 330 feet. Almost all craters between 10,000 and 1 million year in age are less than 2.4 miles in diameter. For craters ages between 1 and 10 million years ago, they have a diameter of 3 miles or more. Craters with diameter 12 miles or more are all older than 10 million years ago. Knowing this, looking at the 5 largest impact craters will probably be some of the oldest in Asia!

Popigai

The Popigai impact structure is the eroded remnant of an impact crater in northern Siberia, Russia. It is tied with the Manicouagan structure as the fourth largest verified impact structure on Earth. A large bolide impact created the 62 mile diameter crater approximately 35 million years ago during the late Eocene epoch. It might be linked to the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event that occurred 33.9 and 33.4 million years ago. During that event, there was large-scale extinction and floral and faunal turnover.

Puchezh-Katunki

Located in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast of the Volga Federal District, Russia, Puchezh-Katunki is 50 miles in diameter. Argon–argon dating has constrained the age of formation to be 195.9  million years old. The crater is not exposed to the surface, but appears as variation in the vegetation.

Kara

Located in the Yugorsky Peninsula, Nenetsia, Russia, Kara is a heavily eroded meteorite crater that is currently 40 miles in diameter. Before it eroded, the Kara crater is thought to originally been 75 miles in diameter. Due to the size, the age is estimated to be around 70 million years old. The crater cannot be found on the surface.

Karakul

Karakul, Qarokul is a 16 mile diameter lake within a 32 mile impact crater. It is located in the Tajik National Park in the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan.

Saqqar

A circular structure in northwestern Saudi Arabia, Saqqar has an apparent diameter of 21 miles. Due to its size, its age is thought to be somewhere between 410 and 70 million years ago.

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