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It's not always easy doing fieldwork at the Ries structure! Many of the quarries are completely overgrown by vegetation. At the top of this slope are some more crater-fill sediments. Lets scramble up for a closer look! | Here we can see limestone on top of layered sands and gravels. These limestones are nearly identical to those at the previous stop and were laid down in the post-impact crater-lake. The underlying sands and gravels are part of an ancient delta , sediments that were transported into the crater-lake by a river. We've now seen crater-fill sediments at 3 locations, including this stop, and from stops 1 and 5 . These sediments allow us to reconstruct the environment after the impact event: rain and groundwater rapidly filled the crater to form a lake; we also know that rivers flowed into and maybe out of the crater-lake. This lake was also soon colonized by blue-green algae and other forms of life, following the devastating impact event. |
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