Ames crater, Impact crater in Major County, Oklahoma, United States.
Ames crater is an impact site roughly 16 kilometers across, buried beneath 2,700 meters of sedimentary layers near the town of Ames. The formation remains completely underground and invisible from the surface.
The structure formed roughly 470 million years ago during the Ordovician period when a meteor struck the Earth. The impact created a deep basin that gradually filled with sediment over time.
The Ames Astrobleme Museum presents exhibits about the geological formation through videos, graphs, and educational displays. Visitors can learn how the impact shaped the rock layers beneath the surface.
The site cannot be visited directly since the crater lies completely underground with no surface access for visitors. The nearby museum in town is the only way to learn about this geological location.
The formation was identified in 1991 through seismic patterns and turned out to be one of North America's most productive oil reservoirs. This discovery linked geological science with major energy resources.
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