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LARGEST CRATER IN THE GREAT SAHARA DISCOVERED (Boston,
March 3, 2006) � Researchers from Boston University have discovered the remnants
of the largest crater of the Great Sahara of North Africa, which may have
been formed by a meteorite impact tens of millions of years ago. Dr. Farouk
El-Baz made the discovery while studying satellite images of the Western Desert
of Egypt with his colleague, Dr. Eman Ghoneim, at BU's Center for Remote Sensing. |
My Statement Mr. Jochen Steffen traveld between 1998 and 2004 common with Mr. Samir Lama several times for weeks in the Gilf Kebir region. He also took insightful photos from the area of the eastern edge of the supposed structure "Kebira", around 24 � 43'N / 25 � 02'E. They show a landscape with volcanic plugs and thus another argument against an impact event. Surprisingly, modern satellite images also show in the environment a reddish color due to a infiltration by iron.
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Further visits to clarify the origin of "Kebira"
"We continued north in the morning, rounding
the western edge of the Gilf, towards a large circular feature that was recently
announced to be an 'impact crater' (Kebira Crater) by Faruk el Baz and his
team. We drove past the 'central uplift' along it's western edge, then drove
into the central part. It is evident, that what is considered the 'central
uplift' is in fact nothing more than an eroded outlier of the Gilf, the undisturbed
horizontal bedding being clearly visible at all times. The circular shape
appears to be pure coincidence, the whole feature is the result of drainage
patterns and subsequent eolian erosion, there is nothing to suggest it's impact
origin."
"We were now in the crater area, looking at
the western edge of the central uplift area of the "crater". What we saw were
uniform horizontal layers of sedimentary rocks, undisturbed except by the
processes of natural erosion. The jumbled, chaotic rock formation that we
would expect to see in the central uplift area of a crater was not evident
at all." |
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