Updated on Monday, October 23, 2006, 00:00 IST

New Delhi, Oct 23: Indian geologists claim to have discovered a possible Impact Crater in Kutch district of Gujarat dating back to the Vedic period.

The crater, suspected to have been formed by the impact of an extra-terrestrial object, is seen as a circular feature near Luna village in the northwestern Banni Plains of the Great Rann in Kutch district.

The site - the third in the country after Lonar in Maharashtra and Ramgarh in Rajasthan - is located about a kilometre away from a human settlement belonging to the Harappan period and may have found reference in ancient Sanskrit texts, which mention the "impact of a burning extraterrestrial object" in western India some 4,000-5,000 years ago.

"While most other recognised craters are located within hard rocks, this possible impact crater has special significance as it is located within an extremely low-lying flat terrain comprising unconsolidated soft sediments, and its appearance is unconventional and deceptive," Geologists R V Karanth and M S Gadhavi of the M S University of Baroda said reporting their discovery in current science, a magazine published by the current science association and the Indian Academy of Sciences.

The geologists, along with P S Thakker of the space applications centre, surveyed the crater and found a dense growth of a variety of acacia plant species in the inner part of the rim. Villagers claim the growth of the wild thorny plants was a recent phenomenon, about three or four decades old.

The circular crater measures 1.2 km east-west and 1.2 km north-south and forms a shallow depression filled with sediments and the lowest point of which is hardly two meters above the mean sea level, they said.

Bureau Report