Vedic age crater found in Rann of Kutch

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Vedic age crater found in Rann of Kutch

[ 23 Oct, 2006 1423hrs ISTPTI ]

 

NEW DELHI: Indian geologists claim to have discovered a possible

impact crater in Kutch district of Gujarat dating back to the Vedic

period.

 

The crater, suspected to have been formed by the impact of an extra-

terrestrial object, is seen as a circular feature near Luna village in the

northwestern Banni Plains of the Great Rann in Kutch district.

 

The site - the third in the country after Lonar in Maharashtra and

Ramgarh in Rajasthan - is located about a kilometre away from a

human settlement belonging to the Harappan period and may have

found reference in ancient Sanskrit texts, which mention the "impact of

a burning extraterrestrial object" in western India some 4,000-5,000

years ago.

 

"While most other recognised craters are located within hard rocks, this

possible impact crater has special significance as it is located within an

extremely low-lying flat terrain comprising unconsolidated soft

sediments, and its appearance is unconventional and deceptive,"

geologists R V Karanth and M S Gadhavi of the M S University of

Baroda said reporting their discovery in Current Science, a magazine

published by the Current Science Association and the Indian Academy

of Sciences.

 

The geologists, along with P S Thakker of the Space Applications

Centre, surveyed the crater and found a dense growth of a variety of

Acacia plant species in the inner part of the rim. Villagers claim the

growth of the wild thorny plants was a recent phenomenon, about three

or four decades old.

 

The circular crater measures 1.2 km east-west and 1.2 km north-south

and forms a shallow depression filled with sediments and the lowest

point of which is hardly two meters above the mean sea level, they

said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2232131.cms