Kamil impact crater in Egypt

AC Sparavigna, Politecnico Torino

An impact perfectly preserved crater is the Kamil crater, discovered during a survey of satellite images on Google Earth. Researchers think the crater as formed within the past thousand years (it is estimated to be less than 5,000 years old) [1].

Kamil Crater is a 45 meter wide meteorite impact crater in Egypt . It was located in 2008 using Google Earth by Vincenzo de Michele, former curator of the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Milano, Italy. The geophysical study was conducted during an Italian-Egyptian expedition and proved the meteoritic origin of the crater.

As the figures are showing, the Kamil crater possesses a rayed structure. It is estimated to be less than 5,000 years old. The crater was produced by an iron meteorite, which fragmented in thousands

of pieces after impact with the ground. Meteorite fragments for a total of 800 kg were recovered during the geophysical expedition.

Figure 1 is the crater as it is possible to observe from Google Maps. Figure 2 is the image of the Kamil Crater obtained after processing image in Fig.1 with AstroFracTool [2], followed by a Gimp adjustment of contrast and brightness. Note the enhancement of details of the ground surface. The use of AstroFracTool is creating an embossment effect. In the Fig.3, after AstroFracTool processing, the Gimp Curves tool, for changing the color, brightness, contrast is applied: note the enhanced visibility of the rayed structure.

Reference

1) L. Folco, M. Di Martino, A. El Barkooky, M. D'Orazio, A. Lethy, S. Urbini,. I. Nicolosi,.M. Hafez, C. Cordier, M. van Ginneken, A. Zeoli, A.M. Radwan, S. El Khrepy, M. El Gabry, M. Gomaa,.A. A. Barakat, R. Serra, M. El Sharkawi, The Kamil Crater in Egypt, Science, 22 July 2010, DOI: 10.1126/science.1190990

2) Roberto Marazzato, Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, Astronomical image processing based on fractional calculus: the AstroFracTool, 26 Oct 2009, Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, arXiv:0910.4637v2 [astro-ph.IM], http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.4637

Fig.1 Kamil Crater as shown by Google Maps.

Fig.2 Image of the Kamil Crater obtained after processing image in Fig.1 with AstroFracTool and Gimp, to adjust contrast and brightness. Note the enhancement of details.

Fig.3 Image obtained after processing the image in Fig.1 with AstrofracTool and the Gimp Curves tool, for changing the color, brightness, contrast. Note the enhanced visibility of the rayed structure.