San Luis Series
The San Luis Series takes its name from the Perigee: Zero terminal impact crater which passes across the current location of San Luis, Argentina. The total crater length is 2,400 km. The extended length is due to the sudden elevation change which occurred just as the trenching was abating after 1,200 km. Upon striking the Andes, the comet was terminally disrupted, causing a fan crater event. This event is not yet dated.
The reader is encouraged to load the Google Earth keyhole file and examine the structures using that GIS tool.
Keyhole file for the San
Luis Series
San Luis family portrait
The -1 orbital Perigee: Zero event location is shown, located in the South Atlantic Ocean floor. The 16 degree longitude offset represents an orbital time of ~104 minutes.
The terminal fan crater overlay for the San Luis Crater correlates very well to the geomorphology represented at this site. There is a wide debris field of ejecta and splash surrounding the fan structure. In addition, we find it highly supportive that the research has identified a documented Ordinary Chondrite stone meteor, recovered in 1964 in San Luis. The bearing of the trenching event is aligned with the purported Rio Cuarto impact craters. The general area has been identified by P. A. Bland, et al as a tektite strewn field.
Here is the crater, linked to a higher resolution version to allow for more detail.
San Luis Terminal Fan Crater
The area surrounding the crater is covered with small ejecta emplacements , in the form of lakes and splatter marks. A gallery of Google Earth graphics are offered in the Ejecta Morphology Section.
The primary resulting ejecta is interpreted by the PZ research team as being emplaced in the Southwestern section of Australia. The area is shown here, hi-lighted with a generic PZ ejecta overlay, which correlates well with the expected arrival vector and shape. This area of Australia contains many oriented lakes.
Southwestern Australia Emplacement
