Tenoumer crater
Encyclopedia
Tenoumer is an impact crater
in Mauritania
.
.
The crater is exposed at the surface. The crater is nearly circular, and the edge of the crater is 110 metres from the base of the crater to the top of the rim.
Tenoumer crater is on a Precambrian
peneplain
with a thin layer of Pliocene
sediments (no older). A volcanic origin is theorized because of the discovery of basalt
and rhyodacite
outside of the crater basin. The crater is believed to be caused by an impact event due to basement rocks found outside the 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 Mauritania
Mauritania
Mauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...
.
Details
The crater is located in the western Sahara Desert. It is 1.9 km in diameter and the age is estimated to be 21,400 ± 9,700 years placing it in the PleistocenePleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
.
The crater is exposed at the surface. The crater is nearly circular, and the edge of the crater is 110 metres from the base of the crater to the top of the rim.
Tenoumer crater is on a Precambrian
Precambrian
The Precambrian is the name which describes the large span of time in Earth's history before the current Phanerozoic Eon, and is a Supereon divided into several eons of the geologic time scale...
peneplain
Peneplain
A peneplain is a low-relief plain representing the final stage of fluvial erosion during times of extended tectonic stability. The existence of peneplains, and peneplanation as a geomorphological process, is not without controversy, due to a lack of contemporary examples and uncertainty in...
with a thin layer of Pliocene
Pliocene
The Pliocene Epoch is the period in the geologic timescale that extends from 5.332 million to 2.588 million years before present. It is the second and youngest epoch of the Neogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Pliocene follows the Miocene Epoch and is followed by the Pleistocene Epoch...
sediments (no older). A volcanic origin is theorized because of the discovery of basalt
Basalt
Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...
and rhyodacite
Rhyodacite
Rhyodacite is an extrusive volcanic rock intermediate in composition between dacite and rhyolite. It is the extrusive equivalent of granodiorite. Phenocrysts of sodium rich plagioclase, sanidine, quartz, and biotite or hornblende are typically set in an aphanitic to glassy light to intermediate...
outside of the crater basin. The crater is believed to be caused by an impact event due to basement rocks found outside the crater.