Zhamanshin () is a meteorite crater in Kazakhstan. It is in diameter and the age is estimated to be 900,000 ± 100,000 years (Pleistocene). The crater is exposed at the surface.
Description It is believed that the Zhamanshin crater is the site of the most recent meteorite impact event of the magnitude that could have produced a disruption comparable to that of a nuclear winter, but it was not sufficiently large enough to have caused a mass extinction.Essay "Impact Cratering on Earth", based on: R.A.F. Grieve, 1990, Impact cratering on the Earth, Scientific American, v. 262, 66-73.
Preliminary papers in the late 1970s suggested either Elgygytgyn,R.S. Dietz (1977), Elgygytgyn Crater, Siberia: Probable Source Of Australasian Tektite Field Meteoritics, June 1977, Vol 12, Issue 2, p. 145–157 or Zhamanshin,B.P. Glass (1979), Zhamanshin crater, a possible source of Australasian tektites? Geology, July 1979, v. 7, p. 351-353 as the source of the Australasian strewnfield.
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