Meteorite Impact Craters in the Territory of Central Chernozem Region

Circular depressions of various depths have been known in the Central Chernozem region for decades. Their diameter ranges from the first tens of meters to two kilometers. They are surrounded by a shaft up to 50 m wide. The interior of the depressions is flat, often swampy, and sometimes lake-type reservoirs of varying depths are developed there. According to the conclusion of various researchers, the rocks in the areas of these depressions are volcanic ash or impactites. However, despite the presence of a number of signs indicating the cosmic origin of the depressions, various opinions were expressed, but the main hypotheses were related to karst and suffusion manifestations, as a result of which funnels appeared on the earth's surface. We have established that the rounded depressions observed on the Earth's surface are impact craters formed during explosions of celestial bodies and during their contacts with the earth and water surfaces. Rocks formed during explosions are impactites. Confirmation of the impact nature of rocks arising from impact metamorphism is the specific fracturing, polymorphic modifications of quartz group minerals (stishovite, tridymite, cristobalite) contained in the rocks, the genesis of which is associated with high temperatures and pressures, as well as abnormally high concentrations of platinum group metals, which are millions of times higher than the clark of the Earth's crust and from several thousand to the first tens of thousands of times higher than their content in chondrites. Among them, the maximum concentrations are iridium, osmium and rhenium. At such high concentrations, impactites are of industrial interest and deserve exploration work. Given the modern geological processes taking place on the earth's surface, it can be assumed that the territory of the Central Chernozem region was subjected to intense bombardment by meteoritic material at the end of the Pleistocene—the beginning of the Holocene.