Magnificent ancient crater in the Anti-Atlas

This stunning image was taken on March 9 by .’s Sentinel-2A satellite European Copernicus Program It reveals a fascinating mixture of geological structures. The long line running from left to right is nothing but a very old mountain range, the Anti-Atlas, which crosses southwestern Morocco and Algeria. As its name suggests, it is part of Atlas Massif that characterizes the landscapes of North Africa.

The remains of a giant mountain range

In the area imaged by the satellite, the Small Atlas marks the border with the Sahara Desert in western Algeria. This mountain range, some of whose peaks reach a height of more than 3000 meters, is 600 kilometers long. It was formed about 300 million years ago during a major episode of continental collision called the Alleghanian orogeny: the African plate then meets the Laurussian plate to form The supercontinent Pangea. Scientists believe that the Anti-Atlas was originally supposed to rise higher than the Himalayas. Over millions of years, erosion has had time to severely overwhelm the inscriptions.

So the rocks that make up the Anti-Atlas are very old and the terrain is very hard. It is known that this rock mass paleontologists Since many dinosaur bones have been discovered there. But the satellite image reveals another treasure of this mountain range.

Well-preserved meteor crater

In the center of the picture we clearly distinguish a full circle. This is the Burkes meteor crater. It has a diameter of 3.5 km and was formed by the impact of a meteor About 70 million years ago. Despite the particularly dry climate of the area, we can see that the interior of the crater is marked by canal traces (tree-like shapes running from left to right). Certainly, the transverse flow of the rivers allowed the filling of the sedimentary pit.

This crater is one of the geological structures that can be clearly seen from space and in particular fromISAllow astronauts To know precisely.