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Chronology of
Earth Impacts

Copyright © 2010-2021 Ken Polsson
internet e-mail: ken@kpolsson.com
All rights reserved. Permission is granted to create web links
to this site, not to copy these pages to other web sites.
URL: http://kpolsson.com/impact/

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This document is an attempt to bring various published sources together to present a timeline about Earth Impacts. Meteorites are space objects that survive passage through the Earth's atmosphere and impact the Earth's surface. Those that burn up in the atmosphere are called meteors or shooting stars. Prior to encountering Earth's atmosphere, meteoroids are small particles from asteroids and comets that orbit the Sun.

References are numbered in [brackets], which are listed here. A number after the dot gives the page in the source.

Last updated: 2021 August 15.


2023 million BCE

  • An impact crater approximately 300km in diameter is created in modern-day Vredefort, South Africa. [523.185]

1850 million BCE

  • An impact crater approximately 200km in diameter is created in modern-day Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. [523.185]

600 million BCE

  • An impact crater approximately 60km in diameter is created in modern-day Beaverhead, Montana, USA. [523.185]

580 million BCE

  • An impact crater approximately 85-90km in diameter is created in modern-day Acraman, South Australia. [523.185]

400 million BCE

  • An asteroid impacts the Earth in modern-day central Ukraine, leaving create approximater 4 miles in diameter, 2000 feet deep. [1005.64]

368 million BCE

  • An impact crater approximately 55km in diameter is created in modern-day Siljan Ring, Sweden. [523.185]

360 million BCE

  • An impact crater approximately 54km in diameter is created in modern-day Charlevoix, Quebec, Canada. [523.185]

247 million BCE

  • An impact crater approximately 40km in diameter is created in modern-day Araguainha, Brazil. [523.185]

220 million BCE

  • An impact crater approximately 40km in diameter is created in modern-day Saint Martin, Manitoba, Canada. [523.185]

214 million BCE

  • An impact crater approximately 100km in diameter is created in modern-day Manicougan, Quebec, Canada. [523.185]

175 million BCE

  • An impact crater approximately 80km in diameter is created in modern-day Puchezh-Katunki, Russia. [523.185]

145 million BCE

  • An impact crater approximately 70km in diameter is created in modern-day Morokwena, South Africa. [523.185]

144 million BCE

  • An impact crater approximately 40km in diameter is created in modern-day Mjølnir, Norway. [523.185]

128 million BCE

  • An impact crater approximately 55km in diameter is created in modern-day Tookoonooka, Queensland, Australia. [523.185]

65 million BCE

  • A comet or asteroid with estimated diameter 10-12km impacts the Earth at 20-60km per second in what is now Chicxulub in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, creating a crater of about 180-300km diameter and 30-50km deep. The crater location is discovered in the late 1970s, and is suspected to have had a role in the demise of dinosaurs. [523.178,185] [526.208]

57 million BCE

  • An impact crater approximately 65km in diameter is created in modern-day Kara, Russia. [523.185]

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50 million BCE

  • An impact crater approximately 45km in diameter is created in modern-day Montagnais, Nova Scotia, Canada. [523.185]

35 million BCE

  • An asteroid about 7-10km in diameter impacts the Earth in modern-day Popigai, Siberia, Russia, leaving an impact crater 80-100km in diameter, 10km deep. [523.185] [526.xviii,165]

35 million BCE

  • A space object hits the Earth, creating the "Toms Canyon" crater in modern-day New Jersey, USA. [526.172]

34 million BCE

  • A space object impacts Earth creating a 85km diameter, 1.6km deep crater in modern-day Chesapeake Bay crater in Virginia, USA. [523.178,184] [526.172]

15 million BCE

  • A space object impacts at modern-day Nördlinger Ries in Germany. [523.178]

5 million BCE

  • An impact crater approximately 45km in diameter is created in modern-day Kara-Kul, Tajikistan. [523.185]

1.3 million BCE

  • A space object impacts Earth creating modern-day Lake Bosumtwi Crater in Ghana. [523.178]

768,000 BCE

  • An asteroid or comet impacts Earth in modern-day Indo-China. [523.178]

300,000 BCE

  • An iron meteorite impacts modern-day Kimberley in north Western Australia (Wolfe Creek Crater). [523.39,172]

48,000 BCE

  • A 50,000 ton iron meteorite hits Earth at modern-day Arizona, USA, leaving crater 1.2km wide, 180m deep, Earth's largest impact crater with associated meteorite fragments. [523.23,172] (28,000 BCE [1005.64])

10,700 BCE

  • Atlantis is deluged by water, possibly from tsunamis caused by oceanic impact of a disintegrating comet or large asteroid, as reported by Plato (either historic or mythic). The location is possibly North and South America, resulting in extinction of about 30 species of large mammals. The great deluge may also be the source of the legends of the biblical Noah's Flood. Dated to this same period are remains of millions of animals in hundreds of miles of frozen tundra found in Alaska and Russia, and massive piles of mastodon and saber-toothed tiger bones in Florida, and various animals found quick-frozen Venezuela. Some 500,000 shallow basins from Georgia to Delaware in the USA also date to this period, suggesting a vast meteor shower of a disintegrating giant comet. Human deaths are estimated at multiple millions. [521]

3195 BCE

  • Postulated date of bombardment of Earth by large meteoroids, fireballs, and resulting atmospheric dust-veil as evidenced as cold period in narrow tree rings, and other world events at the time. Human fatalities unknown, but likely enormous. [521]

June 29, 3123 BCE

  • In the Otz Valley (modern-day Germany), a mile-long asteroid destroys city of Sodom, and thousands of deaths, among the devastation of over one million square kilometres (386,000 square miles), according to computer modelling and interpretations of a 700 BCE clay tablet (the Planisphere) copy of a Sumerian astrologer's account. [521]

3000 BCE (approximate)

  • A iron meteorite creates craters in modern-day Northern Territory of Australia, possibly witnessed by Aborigines. [523.172]

2345 BCE (approximate)

  • Suspected date of a fireball bombardment in Levant area of modern-day Tell Leilan in northern Syria, as evidenced by tree-ring chronologies and microscopic glass spherules. [521]

2300 BCE (approximate)

  • In Southern Iraq, a meteor strikes leaving a 2-mile wide circular crater. [521]

1628 BCE (approximate)

  • Mount Thera volcano erupts, possibly in connection with a meteoric impact with global disruptions of weather. [521]

1478 BCE

  • A "thunderstone" falls to Earth in Crete, as described by Malchus in the Chronicle of Paros. [521]

1159 BCE

  • A series of meteoric impacts of overhead explosions in the Eastern Mediterranean region may explain the collapse of the Shang and Mycenean cultures, the destruction of many major sites, and the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. [521]

April 22, 687 BCE

  • Chinese record a meteor shower in Lyra. [1]

472 BCE

  • A great fall of black dust is reported in Constantinople, which may have been the result of a high-altitude meteor airburst. [521]

207 BCE (approximate)

  • A 1.1km comet impacts southeastern Bavaria (modern day Germany), probably breaking up 70km above the Earth's surface, creating a field of meteorites and impact craters. At about the same time Roman authors write about showers of stones falling from the skies, terrifying the populace. [521]

44 BCE (approximate)

  • A daylight comet passing close to the Earth creates a dust veil over Italy, possibly from large fragment impacts. [521]

May 22, 12 BCE

  • A daytime meteor shower, possibly Zeta Perseid observed in China. [1]

312

  • Emperor Constantine likely witnesses a meteor strike in central Italy (modern-day Cratere del Sirente), with numerous secondary craters. [521]

476

  • A meteor strike is recorded in I-hsi and Chin-ling, China. [521]

536

  • The sky darkens for about 18 months, crops fail throughout Europe. Over ten years, the population of Rome drops by one-third, Constantinople by four-fifths. Environmental degradation observed from Great Britain to China. Likely cause is overhead cometary explosions. [521]

580

  • In Louraine, a great light is seen crossing the sky, falling to Earth with a crash heard across the countryside. The city of Bordeaux is shaken by an earthquake, villages are burned down, the city of Orleans is burned in a great fire. [521]

588

June 25
  • In China, a "Red-colored object" is reported to fall with a "noise like thunder" and exploded, burning several houses. [521]

616

January 14
  • Chinese record the death of ten people from a meteorite fall. [521]

679

  • The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that in Coldingham, England, the monastery is destroyed by "fire from heaven". [521]

764

  • In Nara, Japan, a meteorite strikes a house. [521]

810

  • In Upper Saxony, a meteor startles Charlemane's horse, throwning him to the ground. [521]

861

May 19
  • A meteorite falls in the Shinto temple grounds at Nogata-shi in Japan. [523.19]

End of Start to 999. Next: 1000.

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start-999 1000-1901 1902-1959 1960-1999 2000-end


A list of references to all source material is available.

Other web pages of interest:

  • Chronology of World History
  • Chronology of Space Exploration
  • Chronology of Earthquakes and Volcanos
  • This Day in History
    Last updated: 2021 August 15.
    Copyright © 2010-2021 Ken Polsson (email: ken@kpolsson.com).
    URL: http://kpolsson.com/impact/
    Link to Ken P's home page.

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