Cloud Creek crater
Template:Short description Template:Infobox terrestrial impact site Cloud Creek crater is an impact crater in Wyoming, United States.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The crater is located in Natrona County, about Template:Convert northwest of Casper, near the center of a geological feature known as the Casper Arch.<ref name="Stone03">Template:Cite journal </ref>Template:Rp
The Cloud Creek structure is circular with a current diameter of about Template:Convert, and it is buried beneath about Template:Convert of Mesozoic rocks.<ref name="Stone03"/>Template:Rp The age of the structure is estimated to be 190 ± 20 million years, which means that it formed as the result of an impact during the early part of the Jurassic Period.<ref name="Stone03"/>Template:Rp This impact feature is not exposed at the surface, but it is known only through wells drilled for oil and gas. First reported by Donald Stone,<ref name="Stone99"/> Cloud Creek is a circular structure documented using several 2D reflection seismic lines of fair to good quality, gravity, magnetic and borehole data.<ref name="Stone03" /> The structure has a central core of brecciated, fractured and faulted rocks uplifted up to 520 m relative to the normal stratigraphy outside the structure. The core is surrounded by an annular trough and a detached fault-bounded rim anticline. The rim anticline defines the 7 km diameter of the structure. The structure was compressed and upthrown during the Laramide compression. Morphometric parameters of the structure are consistent with known impact structures. The core is associated with a positive gravity anomaly. Magnetic data could not be interpreted.<ref name="Stone03"/>
History
The first published report of the Cloud Creek Structure was in 1985.<ref>Template:Cite book </ref> However, an impact origin was probably first proposed sometime after 1973 by a Casper geologist named Jack Wroble<ref name=Stone99>Template:Cite journal </ref>Template:Rp A total of ten wells have been drilled for oil and gas within the boundaries of the Cloud Creek structure between 1955 and 1999.<ref name="Stone99"/>Template:Rp Two wells have been drilled with the central peak, four wells within the encircling skirt, and four through the outer rim structure.