Craters of identical size from the large elliptical Chiemgau impact region provide an interesting comparison. The craters shown below depict areas of significantly elevated terrain in the extremely high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM 1). Compared to the lunar crater, they are extremely shallow, which we attribute to their formation during an extensive low-altitude touchdown airburst impact.
The Chiemgau impact Riederting and Bergham craters. The diametral profiles show that they are nearly the same size and shape.
The Manholdung crater near Lake Chiemsee, so far erroneously considered an ice-age end moraine.
High-resolution digital terrain models, Rayleigh-Taylor/Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities, and hydrocode modeling: evidence of a Holocene low-altitude “touchdown” airburst impact event over Central Europe from the French border to the Czech Republic.
In the case of the well-known Canadian Earth Impact Database and the database of the University of Freiburg, where published proven impacts from Spain, Germany and the Czech Republic are simply ignored since decades, the question arises once again, as in the past, where a few members of a university take the incredible liberty to decide and make public what is right or wrong in science. Certainly, it can be meritorious to collect data in such a database (that’s why it’s called that) and make it available to the general public. However, this does not justify any kind of scientific evaluation, which can basically be denied to the databases. Unfortunately, this obviously small database groups under the leaders John Spray (Canada) and Thomas Kenkmann (University of Freiburg), have caused immeasurable damage in impact research. The negative main effect is that questionable up to wrong evaluations of this scientifically by nobody legitimized databases are taken over world-wide with impact publications however, as law into their work, and scientifically questionable statements are handed down by authors and article reviewers.
For the following two databases as well, the number of confirmed impacts comes to about 200. It seems that one database is simply copying data from the other, leaving us in the “early Middle Ages” of impact research. None of this reflects well on the Impact Cratering Committee of the MetSoc, and we wonder what purpose this committee actually serves.
Western University https://impact.uwo.ca/ https://impact.uwo.ca/impact-craters/map/ – 197 currently CONFIRMED impact craters. For heaven’s sake, who took the liberty of approving this selection?
The Barringer Crater Company- Interactive Earth Impact Database. – Quote from the page: “This incredible database of verified impact craters was initiated in 1955 …” Indeed, it’s an incredible impact database! WHO VERIFIED the selection?
The article by G.R. Osinski et al., with just under 200 citations, makes little difference, if any: Earth-Science Reviews Volume 232, September 2022, 104112 Impact Earth: A review of the terrestrial impact record.
Prof. Simón and geologists from the University of Zaragoza: Azuara, the Pelarda Fm. ejecta, the Revista de la Sociedad Geológica de España, and the manipulation of science – a commentary article
As we recently announced here, we are now publishing our detailed commentary on the unspeakable article by the geologists from the University of Zaragoza regarding the prominent large impact ejecta deposit at the Azuara structure. Our article has been published on ResearchGate and can be downloaded as a PDF here.
Abstract. – We comment on a recently published (June 2026) article by geologists from the University of Zaragoza (lead author Prof. José L. Simón) in Spanish, titled (translated) The controversial conglomerate complex of Sierra Pelarda (Central Iberian Mountain Range): clast recycling in a comprehensive morphotectonic-sedimentary model. This article is a continuation of all previous efforts—primarily by geologists at the University of Zaragoza—to ignore or discredit the massive multiple impact event at Azuara-Rubielos de la Cérida, which has been described in extensive literature for decades. In the article by Simón et al., two related articles from 1990 and 1992 (i.e., 30 years old) are mentioned in a single brief sentence, but neither the Azuara impact structure nor the Pelarda Formation—one of the world’s largest and most significant impact ejecta deposits—is mentioned again, not even in the abstract. In recent years, the Pelarda Formation impact ejecta have been mentioned and discussed in greater detail in more than a dozen publications, including papers presented at conferences of the Meteoritical Society, the Lunar & Planetary Science Conference, and the American Geophysical Union. A 60-page article on the Azuara and Rubielos de la Cérida impact was printed and published in 2002 by the Treb. Mus. Geol. Barcelona, featuring a lengthy section on the Pelarda Formation. Extensive papers on the Azuara impact structure, including the Pelarda Formation ejecta, are available on publicly accessible websites and can be downloaded there. The most recent presentation also regarding the Pelarda Formation ejecta took place at the annual meeting of the Meteoritical Society in 2023. The impact-related presentations on the Pelarda Formation generally list the globally recognized geological and mineralogical- petrographic findings and evidence that prove the impact. These include widespread, intense shock effects such as impact melts, diaplectic glasses, planar deformation features (PDF and PF), and typical shock-spallation fractures, which are also described for the rocks of the Pelarda Formation. The abundant polymictic breccias in the diamictitic deposits of the Pelarda Formation—featuring polymictic breccia generations otherwise virtually unknown in “normal” geology—cannot be overlooked. This also applies to megaclasts made of Buntsandstein and Eocene rock, up to 9 m in size, that are intercalated within the Pelarda Formation and are difficult to explain using the model proposed by Simón et al. The fact that geologists do not (or do not wish to) understand impact geology has been discussed extensively, but this does not justify the complete suppression of previous research and its extensive and publicly accessible literature. This serious accusation against the geologists at the university applies in particular to the first author, Prof. Simón, who sets a bad example for his students—who are apparently co- authors—of a scientific practice characterized by manipulation. A serious accusation is also directed at the journal Revista de la Sociedad Geológica de España for publishing this fundamentally unscientific article, as well as at the peer reviewers (assuming a peer review took place at all), who apparently condoned this manipulation of science. In the following commentary, we use examples to demonstrate how the authors undermine and contradict all clear impact evidence in favor of their untenable morphotectonic-sedimentary model of the Pelarda Formation.
We are referring here to the article recently published in the Mineralogical Magazine by Luca Bindi et al. on the discovery of trigonal hapkeite:
Trigonal Fe2Si from the Blackville site, South Carolina, USA: occurrence, composition and determination of the crystal structure. – Mineralogical Magazine 90(1):1-20.
We point to our post above we published seven years ago at the LPSC 2019 on hapkeite, which occurs within the vast distribution area – spanning several tens of kilometers – of the entire iron silicide family in connection with the Holocene airburst impact event.
In addition, a very comprehensive paper on the impressive iron silicide deposit at the Chiemgau impact site was published in 2023, covering all previous findings and observations regarding the excavated metallic chunks and spherules (not in glass, as the article incorrectly claims), along with extensive SEM, TEM, and EBSD analyses:
All of this is omitted by Luca Bindi et al. and addressed only in passing in a single sentence with a citation. The Mineralogical Magazine and the responsible peer reviewers are accused of manipulating science. A quick web search using the term “trigonal hapkeite” would have listed our publications among the top results on Google.
We present our findings on the Schlitzer Kauten in Hesse, Germany, revealing their complex structure as part of a larger impact feature field formed by a low-altitude touchdown airburst event. Our high-resolution digital terrain model DGM 1 has allowed us to rule out previous interpretations and connect these formations to similar Holocene events in Mid-Europe from the French border to the Czech Republic.
Please note that this article is a computer translation of the original German text and may contain incorrect wording.
Lake Bärnsee impact – Chiemgau impact strewn field – Impact research in the Czech Republic – Lake Tüttensee multiple impact – The Saarland impact and DTM – Viničky 100 km diameter impact structure in Slovakia
one of the world’s most intriguing meteorite impact ejecta deposits.
Spanish geologists, mainly from the University of Zaragoza, have recently continued what they have been doing for the past two to three decades: denying the existence of the 40-km-diameter Azuara impact and the Pelarda Formation—a prominent ejecta deposit formed as a result—and instead postulating a wide variety of normal geological processes. The most recent example of these thoroughly absurd models was published recently:
Simón, J.L., Arlegui, L.E., Luzón, A., Peiro, A., Soriano, Ma A., Liesa, C.L. (2026) El controvertido complejo conglomerático de Sierra Pelarda (Cordillera Ibérica Central): el reciclado de clastos en un modelo integral morfo-tecto-sedimentario. – Revista de la Sociedad Geológica de España 39 (1).https://doi.org/10.55407/rsge.120742
In this manipulative article, with Prof. Simón of the University of Zaragoza as the lead author, 30 years of extensive literature on the Pelarda Formation as a massive impact ejecta deposit is completely ignored and not even mentioned. We will soon publish a critical commentary on this unbelievable scientific blunder, but we would like to remind visitors here to download our revised articles from 2019 on the Pelarda Formation ejecta of the Azuara impact structure. Click the DOIs:
The Rayleigh-Taylor and Kelvin-Helmholtz instability structures are a prominent feature of the Chiemgau low-altitude airburst impact strewn field, which is the currently most spectacular Holocene impact event worldwide – despite all WIKIPEDIA false claims that continue to be made.
The Rayleigh-Taylor and Kelvin-Helmholtz instability structures are a prominent feature of the Chiemgau low-altitude airburst impact strewn field, which is the currently most spectacular Holocene impact event worldwide – despite all WIKIPEDIA false claims that continue to be made.
The crater Emmerting #004, Chiemgau airburst impact crater strewn field, as a high-resolution Digitale Terrain Model DGM 1. The wavy rim zone corresponds to the Kelvin-Helmholtz liquefaction impact model.
