Vredefort crater
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How it came to be
About 120 kilometres south-west of Johannesburg in South Africa lies an impact structure formed some 2,023 million years ago. It is the oldest, largest and most deeply eroded known impact structure on Earth. The original crater has worn away, and what remains is the Vredefort Dome, the central uplift raised as rock rebounded after the impact.
Here the middle and upper crust is exposed at the surface, and it is the only known site that shows a full geological profile below the floor of an impact crater.
An impact origin was proposed in 1937 and confirmed in 1961, when shatter cones, a sign of impact, were found. The dome was inscribed in 2005.
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