Mr Metals, judging from geophysical and geological investigations of other craters it is likely that nothing of value will be found. It is too small and it is not covered (capped). However, I would hasten to say that this is not true of some craters. It is well documented that large (greater than about 30 miles in diameter) craters are quite prospective for all sorts of commodities. The Wetumpka crater still has an obvious rim, so it is not "capped" in such a way as to seal in any oil or gas. Also, it is obviously fairly recent, post dating any oil/gas generation in that area I would think (however, my knowledge of North Americamn geology is scanty, so I may be wrong on this).
Unfortunately, only trace amounts of large objects survive in the craters and, in particular, no significant amounts of iron/nickel survive. The largest piece of iron/nickel that has been found was about 60 tons (and this was an intact meteorite). Meteorite large than about 60 tons are not frictionally braked effectively, and totally disintegrate when they impact. The impacting object is probably turned into a plasma and is scattered over a very large area, almost none of it reaching the crater.
Some alluvial diamonds are thought to have been sourced (or created by) impacts. The Popigay (sp?) impact in Russia is one of these impacts.
The Vredefort Dome, slap bang in the centre of the Wittwatersrand, is thought to be an impact site and may have been involved in the gold mineralising event. The Sudbury nickel mines are developed in an impact site, but the nickel there has probably originated from the ultramafic flows that were released when the crater was escavated.
One good oilfield (somewhere in the US - I forget where) is developed in a buried impact site.
The Gawler Craton, the focus of recent exploration in Australia, hosts the large Acraman impact structure and I suspect that this impact is associated with some mineralising events in the area. I suspect that the age assigned to the Acraman event is wrong (520 Ma from memory), and it was a much earlier event (1580 Ma) that released the source rocks for the gold/copper/uranium mineralisation in the Gawler Craton (which includes the largest single uranium reserve in the world, 1 MT).
The Geol Survey of Canada (I think) put out a recent paper summarising the prospectivity of impact sites - very interesting reading. I will see if I can dig up the reference for you. Aurum |
