Good find on the area Tek and g. This area has the same characteristics as the area I proposed much further south - but is much closer to the Bolivian town of Desaguadero. These areas appear to be old lake bed, or at least areas with very high water tables. And they have many semi-circular depressions similar to the crater. It looks like any time you dig down more than a few meters, you will strike water.

Questions remaining...

1. Did a meteor cause the crater in this case? There was some meteoric material supposedly found at this location - but was its origin really from the pit?

2. Did the water boil for a few minutes? Was the heat caused by the meteor strike? Meteorites found shortly after they fall often have frost coatings. While the surface heats during entry, that ablates and the core of the meteorite still maintains some of the cold of deep space. Could frictional heating of the crater formation heat water that much? I doubt it. The water is not boiling now - there is no detailed information on its current temperature. My first thoughts were that perhaps the meteor struck a geothermal source, but I have no idea about geothermal features in that area. There is a mountain to the north that the GE Geographic Features layer has 5 labels on that certainly looks like an old eroded volcanic cone and could be a source of geothermal features. But a geothermal source would not likely stop being hot after a short time.

3. Was the illness real or psychosomatic? Latest reports show no evidence of illness. If the crater formed suddenly and subterranean gasses were released (hydrogen sulphide is found in geothermal areas and is a product of lake bottom sediments) they could make some people feel ill if gas concentration was great enough. The area is over 12,000 feet in altitude and perhaps human physiology is more sensitive to such things at that altitude.

4. Are some people hoping for some publicity and trying to attract tourists? I'm just sayin...

I guess we'll have to wait for further developments.

EDIT: And here are a few. Read the latest article from the Los Angeles Times HERE. From the article:

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With the danger seemingly past, some here are thinking big: Why not make the whole deal a tourist site, a small museum and side trip for the many visitors headed to Lake Titicaca and Bolivia?

"Now that various experts from Japan and other countries have assured us there is nothing bad, we have decided this belongs to us," said Benito Mosaja Pari, 56, who called himself the village lieutenant governor.

"We're going to dig it out. The scientists tell us this was part of a world that fell apart. It has some value.

"And now it's ours."

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Even as meteorite samples arrived in Lima Thursday for testing, Peruvian scientists seemed to unanimously agree that it was a meteorite that had struck their territory.
"Based on the first-hand reports, the impact and the samples, this is a meteorite," Macedo, of INGEMMET, said.
Tests revealed no unusual radiation at the site, though its absence didn't rule out a meteorite crash.
"Everything has radioactivity, even underground rocks," Montoya said. "But nothing out of the ordinary was found."
Preliminary analysis by Macedo's institute revealed no metal fragments, indicating a rare rock meteorite. Metal stands up better to the heat created as objects enter Earth's atmosphere, which is why most meteorites are metallic.
The samples she reviewed had smooth, eroded edges, Macedo added.
"As the rock enters the atmosphere, it gets smoothed out," she said.
The samples also had a significant amount of magnetic material "characteristic of meteorites," she said.
"The samples stick to the magnet," Ishitsuka, the geologist, confirmed. "That shows that there is iron present."...
osé Machare, a geoscience adviser at INGEMMET, said x-ray tests conducted on the samples earlier today further confirmed the object's celestial origins. He said the group's findings put to rest earlier theories that the object was a piece of space junk or that the crater had formed by an underground explosion.

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Nearby residents who visited the impact crater complained of headaches and nausea, spurring speculation that the explosion was a subterranean geyser eruption or a release of noxious gas from decayed matter underground.
But the illness was the result of inhaling arsenic fumes, according to Luisa Macedo, a researcher for Peru's Mining, Metallurgy, and Geology Institute (INGEMMET), who visited the crash site.
The meteorite created the gases when the object's hot surface met an underground water supply tainted with arsenic, the scientists said.
Numerous arsenic deposits have been found in the subsoils of southern Peru, explained Modesto Montoya, a nuclear physicist who collaborated with the team. The naturally formed deposits contaminate local drinking water.
"If the meteorite arrives incandescent and at a high temperature because of friction in the atmosphere, hitting water can create a column of steam," added José Ishitsuka, a geologist at the Peruvian Geophysics Institute, who analyzed the object.

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The meteorite's crash also caused minor tremors, shaking locals physically and emotionally. "They were in the epicenter of a small earthquake," Montoya, the nuclear physicist, said.

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"Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end" Stephen Hawking (quoting Woody Allen)
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size has been expanded upto 5 x 30 meters. It looks even larger.

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The resulting crater resembles a muddy pond measuring 42 feet (13 meters) wide and 10 feet (3 meters) deep.

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"Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end" Stephen Hawking (quoting Woody Allen)
"There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower." Richard Feynman
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It looks like we can wrap this up for now. Nothing has appeared recently and the National Geographic article seems to answer all of the questions initially raised.
What we now know:
1) It was a meteor of the type called a chondrite.
2) The size of the hole is smaller than first reported though not the sort of thing you would want in your home.
3) There were seismic tremors produced equal to a 1.5 earthquake.
4) Some people, but not as many as the 200 initially reported, were sickened by gas given off from the crater. The impact was large enough to produce heat (most meteorites that have been found shortly after they landed were cold to the touch). The heat may have caused short-term boiling of ground water in a soil well-known for having arsenic in it. The gas is what made people feel sick.
5) A GEC poster by the name of viajero made only one post in February, 2007. But the post was:

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Peru - all placenames / todo los pueblos (105,000)
All villages and towns in Peru in a single 2.6 mb KMZ from the 1998 Digital Peru project organized by Department. Based on cleaned up VMAP1 (NIMA) data. For best results zoom way in.

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Andina, Peru's official government news agency reported yesterday that Marco Limachi, a district authority in Puno, Peru stated that the large crater would be turned into a tourist attraction. Limachi told Peru's Andina News Agency that the region would take advantage of the attention the crater has attracted.

It was reported that despite the fact that the crater was currently fenced off with wires, within the next few days the Municipality of Desaguadero would roof the area and permit access to where the meteorite had landed.

Limchi stated, "Through different means of communication, we want to sell the crater's image as a tourist attraction so that the townspeople can benefit (from this event)."

In addition, Porfirio Aguilar, the director of tourism in Puno, Peru stated that he would get together with businessmen, Peru's authorities and Bolivia's authorities to promote tourism in the area.

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From www.livinginperu.com

I'll once again change the placemark in the initial post to show the true location of Carancas.

More from Howstuffworks.com here.

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"Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end" Stephen Hawking (quoting Woody Allen)
"There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower." Richard Feynman
Iraq war and occupation costs

Edited by Hill (09/27/07 10:11 AM)

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