St. Magnus Bay,Shetland: A probable British meteorite crater of large size

The last two decades have witnessed a continually expanding programme of investigation concerned with the discovery of terrestrial impact craters or astroblemes as Dietz has called them. These are the wounds produced on the Earth's surface by the high speed collisions with giant meteorites which have taken place throughout geological time. With the exception of a few comparatively recent craters, most of the large scars originated tens or hundreds of millions of years ago and have been preserved as fossils in rocks which have since undergone considerable erosion and alteration.Although various workers have now gathered an impressive array of evidence appertaining to the topographical, petrological and mineralogical changes wrought by the sudden release of enormous quantities of energy when collisions occur, it still remains true that most discoveries of craters are made as a result of their quasi-circular appearance on maps or aerial photographs.A search of maps of the British Isles has revealed several possible impact sites, of which the most convincing is the feature known as St. Magnus Bay in the Shetland Islands. No explanation other than massive impact seems able to account for the peculiar shape of the bay and its resemblance to certain ancient Canadian impact crater residuals.In size it ranks among the dozen or so largest terrestrial impact features and is thus an important object for further study; in its own right and in the context of the currently enhanced speculation concerning the origin of craters on such bodies as the Moon and Mars.