Book your trip with us today visiting one of the best visible impact craters on Earth - Roter Kamm crater. Located 63km from Rosh Pinah Namibia.
The Roter Kamm crater, translate in German – "red ridge". The Roter Kamm crater in the desolate sands of Namib Desert was created by a meteorite some 5 million years ago.
This crater is located in Sperrgebiet known as the Tsau //Khaeb National Park. Tsau meaning Soft and //Khaeb meaning Sand – a restricted area of Namibia reserved for diamond mining. Geologists noticed this structure in the 1960s, and meteoritic origin was proposed already in 1965. Few people entered this remote part of Namib Desert – only in 1986 and 1987 further research took place and the impact origin of the Roter Kamm crater was confirmed.
Meteorite here hit very old (Precambrian, 1.2 billion years) granitic gneiss – Namaqua Metamorphic Complex with some younger sedimentary rocks. There have been found no pieces of meteorite – most likely it has evaporated totally during the impact. Melted rocks contain traces of this chondritic meteorite.
Most ejecta is found to the northwest – west from the crater. This and the oblong shape of crater suggest that meteorite was falling from south-east.
The park has giant rock arches, meteor craters, fossil and archaeological sites including Africa’s most important shipwreck discovery and some of the most pristine and wild landscapes on the planet. Some 1 050 plant species are known to occur in the park, nearly 25% of the entire flora of Namibia on less than three per cent of the land area of the country. This led to the listing of the Succulent Karoo as one of the world’s top 34 ‘biodiversity hotspots’. Tsau //Khaeb National Park is one of a ‘new era’ of protected areas, proclaimed to protect biodiversity while contributing to the local and national economy through tourism development and concessioning.
(References: Allgemeine Zeitung, Roter Kamm Impact Crater in Namibia (nasa.gov); Roter Kamm crater - Wikipedia)
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