Popigai

Popigai is a meteor crater located in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) in eastern Siberia, Russia. The crater lies near the Popigai River, about 550 kilometers northeast of Yakutsk. It has an estimated diameter of about 100 kilometers, making it one of the largest confirmed impact craters on Earth.

Formed by a large asteroid impact, Popigai dates to the late Eocene to early Oligocene, approximately 35 million years ago. The impact produced extensive rock deformation and melted rocks, forming impact breccias and suevite, which are exposed in parts of the structure. The crater is now largely eroded and partly buried by sediment, but several rims and floors are exposed in the region.

Popigai is notable for deposits of high-quality industrial diamond-bearing rocks, known as Popigai diamonds, formed by high-pressure shock metamorphism during the impact. The diamonds occur within impactites and have been of economic interest since their discovery in the Soviet era; they are primarily used for industrial applications such as diamond powder and abrasives rather than as gem-quality stones.

Because of its size, age, and the presence of diamond-bearing rocks, Popigai has been a focus of geological research to understand impact processes and the history of the Siberian Arctic region.