Goat Paddock is a 5 km-diameter near-circular bowl-shaped depression in a range of gently dipping Proterozoic

Proterozoic

The Proterozoic is a geological eon representing a period before the first abundant complex life on Earth. The name Proterozoic comes from the Greek "earlier life"...

 sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...

 in the Kimberley Region of northern Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

, 106 km west-southwest of Halls Creek

Halls Creek, Western Australia

Halls Creek is a small town situated in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. It is located between the towns of Fitzroy Crossing and Turkey Creek on the Great Northern Highway...

. It is interpreted as an ancient meteorite

Meteorite

A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids...

 impact crater

Impact crater

In the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with a larger body...

, the evidence including breccia

Breccia

Breccia is a rock composed of broken fragments of minerals or rock cemented together by a fine-grained matrix, that can be either similar to or different from the composition of the fragments....

 containing melted rocks, silica glass, shatter cone

Shatter cone

Shatter cones are rare geological features that are only known to form in the bedrock beneath meteorite impact craters or underground nuclear explosions...

s and shocked quartz

Shocked quartz

Shocked quartz is a form of quartz that has a microscopic structure that is different from normal quartz. Under intense pressure , the crystalline structure of quartz will be deformed along planes inside the crystal...

., Drilling shows that the crater is filled with about 200 m of ancient lake sediments containing Early Eocene

Eocene

The Eocene Epoch, lasting from about 56 to 34 million years ago , is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Palaeocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the...

pollen, this age thus giving a minimum estimate for the age of the crater itself. The crater is not perfectly circular, but slightly elongated in a north–south direction, suggesting that the projectile struck at low angle
from either the north or south.