Kondyor Massif
Tuesday, 1. July 2008, 20:21:38
Yesterday I wrote about impact craters. Recently many impact craters have been found by the help of satellite images. On a satellite image, meteorite craters are distinguishable from other landforms because they are almost perfectly circular and have a raised rim. Be careful however! this does not mean that any such structure is an impact crater. It may be something else.
The image below is NOT of an impact crater!
The 6-kilometer-wide ring looks like an impact crater, or the caldera of an extinct volcano, but it is neither. The Kondyor Massif in eastern Siberia (Coordinates: 57°35'N, 134°40'E) was formed by the intrusion of igneous, or volcanic, rock that pushed up through overlying layers of sedimentary rock, some of them laid down more than a billion years ago. Kondyor (also spelled Konder) Massif interests geologists not just because of its unusual appearance, but also because of its mineral richness. Among the highly valued minerals at this site are gold, silver, and platinum. Coarse platinum-iron crystals from this site can reach 1.5 centimetres in size, and the area has been mined for platinum. The Kondyor Massif is located north of the city of Khabarovsk. It is a rare form of igneous alkaline-ultrabasic intrusion and it is full of rare minerals. The river flowing out of it forms placer mineral deposits. Last year 4 tons of platinum were mined there. A remarkable and very unusual mineralogical feature of the deposit is the presence of coarse crystals of Pt-Fe alloy, coated with gold.
The Kondyor massif is one of several concentric ultramafic massifs that intruded the Archean and Proterozoic rocks of the Siberian Platform.
More about the geology and in particular the Platinum-group minerals from the Konder Massif, Russian Far East here.
• http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery-detail.asp?name=kondyor
• http://www.pryroda.gov.ua/en/index.php?newsid=5000740
• http://www.redorbit.com/images/images-of-the-day/img/20260/kondyor_massif_russian_far_east/index.html?source=r_earthiod
The image below is NOT of an impact crater!
The 6-kilometer-wide ring looks like an impact crater, or the caldera of an extinct volcano, but it is neither. The Kondyor Massif in eastern Siberia (Coordinates: 57°35'N, 134°40'E) was formed by the intrusion of igneous, or volcanic, rock that pushed up through overlying layers of sedimentary rock, some of them laid down more than a billion years ago. Kondyor (also spelled Konder) Massif interests geologists not just because of its unusual appearance, but also because of its mineral richness. Among the highly valued minerals at this site are gold, silver, and platinum. Coarse platinum-iron crystals from this site can reach 1.5 centimetres in size, and the area has been mined for platinum. The Kondyor Massif is located north of the city of Khabarovsk. It is a rare form of igneous alkaline-ultrabasic intrusion and it is full of rare minerals. The river flowing out of it forms placer mineral deposits. Last year 4 tons of platinum were mined there. A remarkable and very unusual mineralogical feature of the deposit is the presence of coarse crystals of Pt-Fe alloy, coated with gold.The Kondyor massif is one of several concentric ultramafic massifs that intruded the Archean and Proterozoic rocks of the Siberian Platform.More about the geology and in particular the Platinum-group minerals from the Konder Massif, Russian Far East here.
• http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery-detail.asp?name=kondyor
• http://www.pryroda.gov.ua/en/index.php?newsid=5000740
• http://www.redorbit.com/images/images-of-the-day/img/20260/kondyor_massif_russian_far_east/index.html?source=r_earthiod
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