Formation
The Sudbury basin formed as an impact from a bolide approximately 10–15 km (6.2–9.3 mi) in diameter that occurred 1.849 billion years ago in the Paleoproterozoic era.
Debris from the impact was scattered over an area of 1,600,000 km2 (620,000 sq mi) and traveled over 800 km (500 mi) away — rock fragments ejected by the impact have been found as far as Minnesota.
Models suggest that for such a large impact, debris was most likely scattered globally, but has since been eroded away. Its present size is believed to be a smaller portion of a 250 km (160 mi) round crater that the bolide originally created.
Subsequent geological processes have deformed the crater into the current smaller oval shape. Sudbury Basin would then be the second-largest crater on Earth, after the 300 km (190 mi) Vredefort crater in South Africa, and larger than the 170 km (110 mi) Chicxulub crater in Yucatán, Mexico.
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