Catalog and database on the Earth impact structures

An Expert Database on the Earth Impact Structures (EDEIS) has been compiled and is being maintained in the Tsunami Laboratory of the Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics of SB RAS in Novosibirsk. The database has been developed on the basis of the catalog of Earth impact structures that was being maintained in the Department of Mathematical Problems of Geophysics of ICMMG SB RAS since 1990. In addition to fully validated craters, the database contains also the data on the proposed structures whose impact origin is still needed to be confirmed. For any structure, the degree of confidence in the impact origin is reflected by its validity index V, that can adopt the following values: 4 (confirmed), 3 (probable), 2 (possible), 1 (suspected) and 0 (rejected). The latter relates to the structures, whose once proposed impact origin was later disproved by additional studies. Classification of structures over the validity index is based on some sort of expert judgment and reflects the availability of impact criteria found at four different levels: morphological, geological, petrological and mineralogical. Currently, the database contains 1082 structures, among them 206 structures with V = 4, 186 structures with V = 3, 501 structures with V = 2 and 75 structures with V = 1. In addition to the main parametric table, the database in its current version contains over 3200 photos and maps, 860 textual descriptions and 1145 bibliographical references.