Vredefort Crater, the world’s oldest and largest known impact structure

Re:Vredefort Crater, the world’s oldest and largest known im... by adrianmonk on Sunday September 02, 2018 @12:49PM (#17897580)

> impact was so strong that a 25-kilometer section of Earth’s crust was turned on end

This makes it sound like there was a 25km tall piece of crust sticking up into the air, at least for a moment. Is that really what happened or did I interpret "on end" wrong?

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Re:Vredefort Crater, the world’s oldest and largest known im... by posterboy on Sunday September 02, 2018 @02:34PM (#17898020)

> Is that really what happened

No, that seems to be unlikely. But the impact may well have ejected soil into space, as far as I understand, and liquefied stone in its wake, whatever that means.

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Re:Vredefort Crater, the world’s oldest and largest known im... by Someone on Sunday September 02, 2018 @02:18PM (#17897945)

I think you’re interpreting the “25km” part incorrectly. It could be a 25km long, x m wide stretch that’s turned to form a 25km long, x m high ‘wall’.

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Re:Vredefort Crater, the world’s oldest and largest known im... by adrianmonk on Sunday September 02, 2018 @02:57PM (#17898096)

At this point, I'm purely splitting hairs, but I would probably have said "turned on its side" or some other variation of "side" instead, because "end" means something different to me.

But obviously what you're saying makes way more sense physically, so that has to be what it is.

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