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*This from space.com's "Astronotes." Is in updated column format; must copy and paste. Article written by L. David:
July 18
Impact Crater Makes UN List
The United Nation’s Environmental, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee added last week South Africa’s Vredefort Dome -- an Earth impact crater – to its World Heritage List.
Natural and cultural sites are listed to be protected due to their “outstanding universal value around the world.”
The roughly circular pattern of Vredefort Dome, approximately 75 miles (120 kilometers) south west of Johannesburg, is a representative part of a larger meteorite impact structure, or astrobleme. Dating back some 2 billion years ago, it is the oldest astrobleme found on Earth so far.
With a radius of 118 miles (190 kilometers), the impact feature it also the largest and the most deeply eroded.
In inscribing the site, the Committee noted: “Vredefort Dome bears witness to the world’s greatest known single energy release event, which caused devastating global change including, according to some scientists, major evolutionary changes. It provides critical evidence of the earth’s geological history and is crucial to our understanding of the evolution of the planet.”
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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