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Vredefort Dome is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the largest confirmed impact crater on Earth, over 185 miles in diameter. It is the second oldest known crater, formed by an asteroid during Earth’s Paleoproterozoic era, and may have released enough oxygen to lead to the evolution of cyanobacteria. The asteroid was likely 6 miles in diameter and released a thousand megatons of force. The impact crater consists of many different rings of rock, and a thriving tourist infrastructure has begun around the area.
Vredefort Dome is a huge impact crater in South Africa. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has been since 2005. The Vredefort Dome is also known as the Vredefort Crater or the Vredefort Impact Structure and is the largest attested impact crater on the planet.
Vredefort Dome is an impact crater more than 185 miles (300 km) in diameter, making it the largest confirmed impact crater on Earth. Wilkes Land crater, found in Antarctica, is more than 300 miles (500km) in diameter, but it’s not confirmed to be the result of an asteroid hitting Earth. The next largest impact crater on Earth is Sudbury Basin in Canada, which is just over 150 miles (250 km) in diameter.
Vredefort Dome is also the second oldest known crater on the planet, at just over 2 billion years old. This is only a few hundred million years younger than Suavjärvi crater in Russia. This positions the asteroid that hit earth to cause the Vredefort Dome during Earth’s Paleoproterozoic era, when the first cyanobacteria appeared, helping to elevate oxygen levels across the planet.
It’s possible that the very asteroid impact that formed the Vredefort Dome released enough oxygen into the atmosphere to actually lead to the evolution of cyanobacteria. If so, then the Vredefort Dome would represent a physical record of one of the most important events in the history of life on the planet, as from that point on, creatures began to evolve more and more to breathe oxygen, eventually leading to more life forms. complex, including man himself.
The asteroid that hit Earth was probably somewhere within 6 miles (10 km) in diameter, larger than many mountains. When it hit Earth, the asteroid would have released a thousand megatons of force, instantly vaporizing more than 15 cubic miles (70 cubic km) of the planet itself. That’s the equivalent of a thousand of the most powerful active nuclear bombs on the planet, or a billion tons of TNT exploding at the same time.
The Vredefort impact crater consists of many different rings of rock that were uplifted when the asteroid hit. Although many of the rings have since been eroded away, some are still very visible, particularly from the air. Vredefort Dome itself, as outlined by UNESCO, is the inner ring of the original impact crater, measuring approximately 110 miles (180 km) in diameter.
A thriving tourist infrastructure has begun around the Vredefort Dome, and tours, information and accommodation are now available in the area. Pathways crisscross the entire area, and activities such as hiking, biking, and horseback riding provide opportunities to admire the massive dome. River rafting trips also run along the rivers, offering a unique perspective of the uplifted granite and other stones ejected from the earth during the initial asteroid impact.
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