Steinheim crater

File:Shatter-Cone Steinheim.JPG

Shatter cone from the Steinheim Basin (type locality), Germany.<ref>J. Baier: Ein Beitrag zur Shatter-Cone-Bildung (Steinheimer Impaktkrater, Deutschland). - Aufschluss, 69(6), 370-376, 2018</ref> The width of hand specimen is 25 cm.

The Steinheim crater is a meteorite crater in Steinheim am Albuch, Heidenheim County, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.<ref>Template:Cite Earth Impact DB</ref> The crater is located at the north-eastern end of the Swabian Alb, 40km west of the much larger (24-km-diameter) Nördlinger Ries crater.<ref>J. Baier & A. Scherzinger: Der neue Geologische Lehrpfad im Steinheimer Impakt-Krater. - Jber. Mitt. oberrhein. geol. Ver, N. F. 92, 9-24, 2010.</ref><ref>B.A. Ivanov and D. Stöffler, "The Steinheim Impact Crater, Germany: Modeling of a Complex Crater with Central Uplift", Lunar and Planetary Science XXXVI, 2005.</ref>

It is 3.8 km in diameter and the age is estimated to be about 14.3 million years (Miocene). The crater is exposed at the surface. It had previously been thought that the two craters formed simultaneously by the impact of a double asteroid 14.8 million years ago, but a study published in 2020 suggests that Steinheim could actually be about 500,000 years younger than Nördlinger Ries.<ref>Buchner, E., Sach, V.J. & Schmieder, M. New discovery of two seismite horizons challenges the Ries–Steinheim double-impact theory. Sci Rep 10, 22143 (2020).</ref><ref>J. Classen (1978). A large crater field recognized in Central Europe Template:Webarchive, Bull. Ver. Schweiz. Petroleum-Geol. u.-Ing., Vol. 44, Nr. 106, April 1978.</ref> Template:Clear Template:Wide image

Literature

• Johannes Baier: Ein Beitrag zur Shatter-Cone-Bildung (Steinheimer Impaktkrater, Deutschland). In: Aufschluss. 2018, 69(6), S. 370–376.
• Johannes Baier: Zur Shatter-Cone-Bildung (Steinheimer Impaktkrater). In: Aufschluss, 2024, 75(2), S. 89–99.
• Johannes Baier: Geologische Besonderheiten im Albuch. In: Fossilien. Sonderband Geopark Schwäbische Alb, 2015, S. 47–51.
• Johannes Baier: Der Geologische Lehrpfad im Steinheimer Becken – eine kosmische Spurensuche. In: Fossilien. Bd. 30 (2013), Nr. 4, S. 228–232.
• Johannes Baier und Armin Scherzinger: Der neue Geologische Lehrpfad im Steinheimer Impakt-Krater. In: Jahresberichte und Mitteilungen des Oberrheinischen Geologischen Vereins. Bd. 92 (2010), S. 9–24.
• Johannes Baier & Günter Schweigert: Das Steinheimer Meteorkrater-Museum. In: Fossilien. Bd. 42 (2025), Nr. 1, S. 44–53.

References

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