Cloud Creek crater

Cloud Creek crater is a buried meteorite impact structure in Wyoming, about forty-eight miles northwest of Casper near the center of the Casper Arch. Hidden beneath about 1,200 meters of Mesozoic rock, it is circular and about seven kilometers wide, with an uplifted central core of brecciated, fractured, and faulted rock, an annular trough, and a fault-bounded rim anticline. Estimated at 190 ± 20 million years old, it dates to the early Jurassic. Identified through oil and gas drilling, seismic reflection lines, gravity and magnetic data, and boreholes, it was first published in 1985. Despite later Laramide compression, its preserved geometry remains consistent with a recognized impact structure.

Wyoming · United States