The meteorite bombardment changed the face of our planet and led to the onset of the ice age. We can say that if not for the invasion from space, dinosaurs could still rule the Earth.
The planet keeps memories of every impact. The territory of Russia is so large that it is here that scientists find most of the largest craters in the world. Do you think the Tunguska meteorite was great? What about a meteorite leaving behind a crater a hundred kilometers in diameter?
Popigai crater
100 kilometers in diameter and 200 meters deep: the largest meteorite crater in Russia is located in the Popigai River basin. It was formed as much as 35.7 million years ago, during a massive asteroid bombardment, followed by an Oligocene cooling. In 2012, the government declassified information that the world's largest impact diamond deposit was located here.
Kara crater
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On the shores of the Kara Sea there is another large crater with a diameter of 65 kilometers. However, these figures are not yet accurate: there is a theory that the waters of the Kara Sea hide the true dimensions of the crater - presumably not less than 120 kilometers in diameter.
Puchezh-Katunsky crater
167 million years ago, a huge meteorite fell on the territory of the modern Nizhny Novgorod region. Researchers were able to find traces of it only thanks to space imaging, since the crater is not visible on the terrain. Puchezh-Katunsky crater can be considered one of the most mysterious craters in Russia: there is a secret superdeep well - researchers drilled a hole in the ground as much as 7374 meters.
Loganch Crater
A small (only 22 kilometers in diameter) crater is located in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Glaciers and geological processes have deformed its structure, so that researchers discovered the crater only thirty years ago.
Kaluga crater
This ancient crater is buried under sedimentary rocks and cannot be seen from space. But in its place the city of Kaluga was built - by the way, this is one of the mysteries of many craters, in which for some reason people prefer to arrange their settlements.
Lake Svyatoe
Historians suggest that the crater appeared already in historical time, around the 10th century AD. The depth of the lake reaches 27 meters and there is no silt or other vegetation. Around the same time, a whole nation disappeared from the face of the earth.
Lake Elgygytgyn
This unpronounceable name is translated from Chukchi quite simply - "white lake". It appeared as a result of a meteorite fall and has a diameter of 13 kilometers. Scientists believe that it was this meteorite that led to a significant cooling of the climate in Chukotka.
