Geology Picture of the Week, November 9-15, 2003: A tough WhereIsIt? challenge

[cogitator]

Link (and image) post:

I made an error with the link on the chat section page, so I'm providing the picture that should be there below (it's also found in a reply to myself). As per usual, please direct all discussion to the link below.

This WhereIsIt? challenge is first to determine where this is, and second to determine why it's geologically significant.

Link:

Geology Picture of the Week, November 9-15, 2003: A tough WhereIsIt? challenge

Image:

[cogitator]

I'll be shocked if someone guesses the extra impact of this picture on terrestrial geology.

[Onelifetogive]

I'll be shocked if someone guesses the extra impact of this picture on terrestrial geology.

Located in one of the "impact craters" in Europe???

[1Old Pro]

BERLIN

[Prof Engineer]

Grenwich, England?

[bert]

Iguess Basel....

[gridlock]

I'm going to guess that is on the square in Siena, Italy.

I have no idea of the terrestrial significance.

Could it be that the well in the square in Siena was one of those measured to determine and estimate for the size of the Earth?

I'm shootin' in the dark here...

[farmfriend]

I have no clue.

[Political Junkie Too]

Did you cheat like I did?

Hint: right-click on the picture, click on properties, and look at the URL.

-PJ

[cogitator]

Oh, somebody read that! Smart.

You're part of the way there, but you have to be much more specific. It's not just the location; but you're right so far on your premise.

[cogitator]

No, but Germany, yes.

[cogitator]

Sorry...

[Onelifetogive]

Did you cheat like I did?

No...just a wild guess...

[cogitator]

Nope, try again: read some of the thread responses.

[The Grammarian]

Wittenburg?

[cogitator]

No fair telling what you found out.

[cogitator]

Nope, but the church is the item of interest here, too.

[billb]

Freehold, NJ?

[Political Junkie Too]

Sorry... :-(

-PJ

[WilliamWallace1999]

The church is constructed of the stone debris from the meteor itself. It is situated in the remains of a crater in the town of Rochechouart

Rochechouart Meteorite Impact Site, France

http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/undergraduate/field/rochechouart/

[WilliamWallace1999]

HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY

214 million years ago, in the Jurassic age (of the great sauriens) the fall of a heavenly body, 4 kms west of Rochechouart, transformed the surface of our earth. Since then, a million and a half centuries have eroded the crater formed by the meteorite's impact.

The crater ( ASTROBLEME) with a diameter of 20 km, is almost completely eroded and can no longer be distinguished. The meteorite, with a diameter of 1 km 5 weighinh 6000 million tons impacted at 20 km/second, giving off energy equivalent to (300 000 megatons of TNT (14 000 000 times more powerful than Hiroshima). The shockwave (42000 km/s) transformed the underlying rocks to from the "BRECHE" rocks which intrigued leading geologists for a long time.
These "BRECHE" rocks resemble those taken from the moon's surface.
The certain advantage of this "tiny addition" to the earth was that the transformed rocks, the "BRECHES", were used as buiding materials in almost all the ancient constructions.