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Wolfe Creek Crater is located on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert (152 kilometres South of Halls Creek) in the Wolfe Creek Meteor
National Park. The Crater is situated among low sand hills on a spinifex grass plain and is a feature that stands out on the flat and almost featureless landscape.
The crater is reputed to be the world's second largest confirmed meteorite crater. (Some books state that it is the fourth largest meteorite crater.) It has a diameter of
853 metres (another source says 880 metres) and is an almost perfect circle The bottom of the crater is 46 metres below the level of the surrounding plain and about
60 metres below the rim. The walls of the crater are still sharp and complete. They have probably remained that way because of the arid climate. The crater would
originally have been about 120 metres deep but over time it has been slowly filled by wind blown sand and is now less than half that depth.
1 - 2 million years ago (another source says 300,000 years ago) in the Pleistocene period a meteorite weighing about 50,000 tonnes and travelling at 15 kilometres a
second, came almost straight down from the north-east, penetrated the desert floor and then exploded with the force of an A-bomb. Experts believe this because of the
even regular shape of the crater. If it had hit at an angle the crater would be oval and the rim would be of uneven height. Large lumps of weathered iron were found in the
years after the crater was discovered. Some weighed over 150 kilograms. Parts of the meteorite were found as much as 4 kilometres away from the impact site giving
some indication of the force generated by the strike.
The crater remained undiscovered or un-recognised as a crater by Europeans until 1947, when it was noticed by an aerial survey. Even today it is only visited during the
dry season. It is accessible by a dirt road best suited to four wheel drive vehicles. Perhaps the best way to see it is from the air but it is a real experience to stand on the
rim or even inside the crater. The Aboriginal people of the area knew the crater existed and called it Kandimalal.
The European name Wolfe Creek was given first to the creek in 1889 and later to the crater in memory of a Halls Creek store keeper named Robert Wolfe.
The area surrounding the crater was gazetted as a National park in August 1976. The park covers an area of 1,460 hectares and is controlled by CALM / DPaW.
Camping is not permitted in the park itself but facilities are available at the nearby Carranya Station.
The road out to the crater is 4wd territory and the corrugations go on for a long way. The best time to visit the area is just after the wet season when the plants are green and the
area is at its very best.
Probably the most frightening aspect of craters like Wolfe Creek is the certainty that sooner or later a large impact such at the one that occurred here will happen again somewhere
on the surface of the Earth. It is believed that catastrophic impacts may happen once every 15 million years but smaller destructive impacts take place about every 50,000 years.
Scientists believe that at least 1000 asteroids with a diameter of over a kilometre have orbits that cross Earth's so it is only a matter of time before an impact like this happens
again. Luckily Earth is protected to some degree by the gas giants in our solar system. They have very powerful gravitational fields that draw in many objects that may otherwise
collide with Earth.
Meteorites are valuable scientifically as they have changed little since they were first formed. The Earth has undergone so many changes that there is virtually no evidence left of its
earliest form. Meteorites may contain evidence of the origins of life on Earth as amino acids (one of the main building blocks of life) have been found in them.
The movie 'Wolf Creek' has nothing what-so-ever to do with Wolfe Creek Crater.
NPW Website for more information
(C) Michael Petroff
Best time to visit:
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