Vredefort

The Vredefort Dome, which is the deeply eroded central uplift of the original crater, is located in the Free State province of central South Africa. It is situated roughly 120 kilometers southwest of the city of Johannesburg.

When the asteroid struck approximately 2.02 billion years ago, it carved out an initial crater estimated to be nearly 300 kilometers (186 miles) across. This massive diameter makes Vredefort the largest and oldest verified impact structure on planet Earth.

Vredefort is a designated UNESCO World Heritage site that provides scientists with a rare, highly accessible glimpse into the deep crustal structure of the Earth. The immense heat and pressure of the impact instantly shattered the local bedrock into rare geological formations, such as pseudotachylite breccia, which researchers study to understand ancient tectonic forces.

Because the impact occurred over two billion years ago, the crater's original outer rim has completely eroded away. What remains visible today is the Vredefort Dome, a massive, semicircular ring of folded rock that marks the central rebound peak where the earth pushed back up immediately following the collision.