HOW CRATERS FORM

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 226, 16 October 1940, Page 3

HOW CRATERS FORM

Scattered about the centrc of South Carolina are a series of oval craters which, photographed from the air, resemble the craters on the moon. For many years American scientists have been discussing their origin, and a very simple solution has at last been reached. Until the other day the theory was that these craters were made by the impact on the earth of fragments of a comet millions of years ago. But if this were so the axis of the oval craters would be parallel owing to the oblique character of the collision, and they are not so. Higher ridges of sand, too, would be thrown up on the south-west of the craters owing to the relative motions of earth and comet, but these ridges are higher on the south-east. Finally the magnet does not reveal a greater amount of iron under the crates than round about, and iron is characteristic of comet fragments. So Professor Douglas Johnson of Columbia now suggests that these craters are due to erosion by artesian springs which washed away the sand and formed lakes. He accounts for the oval shapes and the differing direct of their axes by a movement of the heads of the springs to the north-west ast hey diminished in force before disappearing and leaving the crater-like beds, or bays as they arc called, to dry out.