UPHEAVAL DOME!!! Impact or Mantle Plume???

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]Is Upheaval Dome a real impact crater?

[00:00:03]Or is it a false impact site like the Richat Structure?

[00:00:08]To clarify, scientists don't think this is an impact crater. Rather, just the uplift dome that's at the center of a crater.

[00:00:17]The reverb of an impact shock wave uplifts a central point.

[00:00:23]Meteor Crater in Arizona has this, but it's 1/15 the width of the crater and it's not very tall. The moon has larger ones due to its rock surface being less dense.

[00:00:37]And Upheaval Dome is a feature of uplifted layers where towards the center older layers are found much higher than they should be.

[00:00:46]These distorted layers have a diameter of 2.9 mi, but where is the crater that should be many times larger? It was either completely eroded away or it never existed.

[00:01:00]Because it could have gotten its concentric rings the same way as the Richat Structure.

[00:01:06]This is a geologic dome where a mantle plume forced up an igneous intrusion that sits below all of these layers. It pushed them up and bent them around the center.

[00:01:18]Erosion then cut it relatively flat.

[00:01:22]But the igneous intrusion was not exposed. This seems very similar to Upheaval Dome.

[00:01:29]But it's the shocked quartz that gives the best support for this being an impact crater. Sand grains of shocked quartz were found on the northeast section of the outer rim.

[00:01:42]It takes a pressure of about 10 gigapascals to deform the quartz structure into shocked quartz.

[00:01:50]And a cosmic impact is what's best known to do this.

[00:01:55]But could an energetic mantle plume create enough pressure to shock quartz?

[00:02:00]Some scientists say yes, but this topic is very much debated. So, we need to turn to magnetism to settle this debate because igneous intrusions have high magnetism. Aeromagnetic surveys found that below the area of Upheaval Dome, there are three prominent magnetic highs, like large stock-like masses in the basement rock, which is rock that is either metamorphic or igneous. And Upheaval Dome is right above one of the crests of this magnetic anomaly that is at least four times as wide as the dome.

[00:02:37]I wish there was a map of this, but doesn't that sound a lot like what they mapped out under the Richat Structure, a large magnetic igneous intrusion deep below and centered under the dome. The huge implication of this is that mantle plumes were powerful enough to shock quartz.

[00:02:56]And I hope more studies are done to show exactly what's under Upheaval Dome.

[00:03:03]In the center of Upheaval Dome, scientists discovered shatter cones, which supposedly supports the impact crater hypothesis, but in fact does the exact opposite because when shatter cones form, the point is towards the source of pressure, and the cone expands outwards away from the pressure source.

[00:03:27]If Upheaval Dome was made by an asteroid impact, the point should be upwards towards the cosmic source.

[00:03:36]And if it was from a mantle plume, they should be pointing downward.

[00:03:40]So, what direction do you think they were pointing?

[00:03:44]Lock in your answer now.

[00:03:47]They were pointing downward, inverted as a V shape.

[00:03:52]Since shatter cones clearly point to the force they came from, and they are pointing at the igneous intrusion that was detected to be right below it.

[00:04:04]So, why is the impact theory the leading theory?

[00:04:09]Because the implications are simply too massive and too catastrophic.

[00:04:15]Scientists are already divided on if a mantle plume can create shocked quartz.

[00:04:21]But if an igneous intrusion pushed by a mantle plume can make shocked quartz and shatter cones, then we are dealing with an extremely energetic mantle activity, which was likely during the mountain building event 80 to 55 million years ago.

[00:04:43]And you might start to consider that the mountains were built and deformed rather rapidly instead of extremely slowly.

[00:04:54]Upheaval Dome is a smoking gun for increased mantle convection and catastrophic plate tectonics, making shocked quartz and shatter cones with no impact needed.

[00:05:09]Thanks for watching. I appreciate you guys watching.

[00:05:13]Please hit the like and subscribe if you haven't already.

[00:05:16]And uh and have a great day.