http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pd ... ookieSet=1Details Emerging On Tunguska Impact Crater
May 27, 2008
Lake Cheko in Siberia has been noted as the probable crater of the 1908 Siberian Tunguska event. This was discussed, but details on the crater were scant. Now a new paper written by Luca Gasperini, Enrico Bonatti, and Giuseppe Longo has a horde of new details on the supposed crater. The team visited Lake Cheko complete with their own catamaran and completed ground-penetrating radar maps, side-scanning sonar images, aerial images, and some sample collection of Lake Cheko. Intriguingly, they also imaged an object under the sediment that may be a fragment of the impacting body. Their paper (PDF) includes a lot more details including images, side-scanning sonar image, a 3-D view of the lake, a morphobathymetric map. [ HUH? ] It's an interesting read, these dudes are good. They plan to return this summer and drill the core if weather permits, hopefully answering the question once and for all.
The same team also has a more discursive article in the current Scientific American that includes some detail on the working conditions in the Siberian summer. Think: mosquitos.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the ... ka-mystery
Studying Tunguska may help us understand similar events that did, or did not, occur throughout human (pre) history and probably shaped it to a considerable degree.