Impact origin of the Nördlinger Ries
Origen de impacto del Ries de Nördlingen
- Date
- 1960 · confidence high
- Place
- Nördlingen, Bavaria, Germany
- Credited to
- Eugene M. Shoemaker
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Shoemaker identified shocked quartz (coesite and stishovite) in the rocks of this large circular depression in Bavaria, proving it to be a meteorite impact crater rather than an ancient volcano, as had long been believed.
The crater itself formed about 14.8 million years ago; what Shoemaker established in 1960 was its impact origin, not the crater's age.
What it led to
- Standard mineralogical criteria for identifying terrestrial impact craters
- Geological reinterpretation of circular structures previously attributed to volcanism