The Vredefort Dome: Review of geology and deformation phenomena and status report on current knowledge and remaining problematics (five years after the cryptoexplosion workshop)

The Vredefort structure located in the center of the Witwatersrand basin in South Africa and the Sudbury structure in Canada are widely considered the two oldest and largest impact structures still evident on Earth. Both structures are very similar in a number of geological aspects (e.g., association with major economic ore deposits, similar ages of ca. 2 Ga, abundant pseudotachylite as well as shatter cone occurrences, overturned collar). However, whereas the geological community generally accepts an impact origin for the Sudbury structure, a number of researchers are still reluctant to accept this for the Vredefort Dome. Therefore, the aim of this review is to present new data, highlight the most obvious shortcomings in the current database, and to summarize the major arguments in the genetic controversy.