Goat Paddock is a 5 km-diameter near-circular bowl-shaped depression in a range of gently dipping Proterozoic sandstone in the Kimberley Region of northern Western Australia, 106 km west-southwest of Halls Creek. It is interpreted as an ancient meteorite impact crater, the evidence including breccia containing melted rocks, silica glass, shatter cones and shocked quartz., Drilling shows that the crater is filled with about 200 m of ancient lake sediments containing Early Eocene pollen, this age thus giving a minimum estimate for the age of the crater itself. The crater is not perfectly circular, but slightly elongated in a north–south direction, suggesting that the projectile struck at low angle from either the north or south.
-
Landsat image of the Goat Paddock crater (circular feature in centre); screen capture from the NASA World Wind program.
-
Oblique Landsat image draped over digital elevation data (x3 vertical exaggeration), Goat Paddock crater (circular feature in centre); screen capture from the NASA World Wind program.
-
The crater can be seen at the centre of this image.
Famous quotes containing the words goat and/or crater:
“There are some things, my dear Fisher, which do not bear much looking into. You undoubtedly have heard of the Siberian goat herder who tried to discover the true nature of the sun. He stared up at the heavenly body until it made him blind. There are many things of this sort, including love and death.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“Give me a condor’s quill! Give me Vesuvius’ crater for an inkstand!”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)