The Jabal Waqf es Suwwan crater is an 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...

 in Ma'an Governorate

Ma'an Governorate

Ma'an is one of the governorates of Jordan, it is located south of Amman, Jordan's capital. Its capital is the city of Ma'an. This governorate is the largest in the kingdom of Jordan by area.-History:...

, Jordan

Jordan

Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...

, near the Saudi border.

The crater has a diameter of 5.5 km. It is estimated at 37-56 million years old. It is exposed at the surface.

The crater was proposed in 2006 by geologists Elias Salameh and Hani N. Khoury from the University of Jordan

University of Jordan

The University of Jordan , is a government-supported University located in Amman, Jordan...

, along with German professor Werner Schneider. The bolide is estimated by Prof. Salameh to have been 100m in diameter, and to have had an impact velocity of 40–50 km/s.

The impact is estimated by the discoverers to have happened between 8000 BC and 5500 BC, which means that it would have been observed by humans.