Tennessee Meteor Craters
There are three meteor craters located in Tennessee. The 3 mile Flynn Creek Structure is northwest of Cookeville, Tn. It is rather distorted due to mountain building in East Tennessee. The Howell Structure is nearly circular about one mile in diameter and is located in Middle Tennessee north of Fayetteville at Howell. The biggest and best is located west of Clarksville at Cumberland City. An elliptical formation about 10 miles in diameter. It is know as the Wells Creek Basin. Wells Creek and the Cumberland River join at the north wall of the crater. These structures are remnants of the original as nearly a 1000 ft of material may have been eroded away over 200,000,000 year period. Therefore the original craters were larger and the actual age of each is hard to fix.
Wells Creek Structure
Howell Structure
Flynn Creek Structure
Maps from Geologic Map of Tennessee 1966 Tennessee Dept. of Conservation. Structures shown to scale. Colors represent different rock formations Orange is Ordovician Breccia (fragmented rock) Black lines are faults.