On Earth, catastrophic impact of an asteroid or comet with truly global consequences has not happened during our written history, and the threat seems very small. Giant scars on our planet’s surface are relics of an impact history stretching back more than 2 billion years, and there is no assurance it cannot happen again. In Australia there are 36 structures ranging from tens of metres to tens of kilometres in diameter, and recognised to varying degrees of certainty as having been formed by giant meteorite impact. In clear and concise language this book begins with ancient beliefs and myths about craters and then explains how they are actually formed and provides details of their structure. Using the record in the rocks, the authors also assess the likelihood of future impacts and their possible effects.

"This volume contains a sizable suite of contributions dealing with regional impact records (Australia, Sweden), impact craters and impactites, early Archean impacts and geophysical characteristics of impact structures, shock metamorphic investigations, post-impact hydrothermalism, and structural geology and morphometry of impact structures - on Earth and Mars"--

A group of small craters that exhibit an unusually wide variety of structural features.

In 1931, the cluster of craters at Henbury Cattle Station south of Alice Springs in Central Australia was one of the first places on Earth where a group of impact structures could definitely be linked to the fall of iron meteorites. It was also the first place where radial rays and loops of ejected rock material, comparable to those seen around craters on the Moon, were observed. As such it was one of the primary observation sites associated with the science of meteoritics in its infancy. In this work the authors present previously unpublished documents covering early research at the Henbury site, provide an extended data set on the distribution of meteoritic material at Henbury craters, and compare recent discoveries on the mechanics of hypervelocity impacts with evidence collected over 80 years of research at the Henbury meteorite craters. In their conclusion, the authors suggest a new hypothesis for the fragmentation and incident direction of the crater-forming bolide, on the basis of a more complete set of data compared with previous models.

This comprehensive atlas explains the genesis and evolution of impact known craters on Earth, presenting a wealth of radar images from the Italian COSMO-SkyMed satellites that were acquired at the same frequency, spatial resolution, operating mode, and illumination, allowing excellent comparison of different impact structures. It also discusses in detail the processes that have hidden or erased terrestrial impact craters, and clearly explains the basic principles of remote sensing and the COSMO-SkyMed system and radar instruments. Also, the optical satellite remote sensing technique used to produce the optical images is described. The main section documents each of the exposed craters officially recognized as caused by meteoritic impact, presenting a table with the COSMO-SkyMed radar image and, where available, a Sentinel optical image and a photograph taken in situ. A short accompanying text reports the location, context, geographical coordinates, and other ancillary information to support future researches.