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Use Impact Earth’s interactive map to search your region, then check each listing’s record instead of treating a round shape in satellite imagery as proof. The map helps locate known structures; confirmation of an unfamiliar feature requires geological evidence.

Find mapped impact structures in your area

  1. Open Impact Earth’s interactive map of impact craters and deposits.

  2. Zoom to your chosen region and inspect nearby map entries. Use the map’s layers and filters, including diameter, to narrow what you see.

  3. Open an entry and review its name, location and record details. NASA’s Johnson Space Center describes database records that include structure names, locations, coordinates, ages and diameters. Its downloadable list is an older snapshot, so use the interactive map for current exploration: NASA Johnson Space Center impact-crater resource.

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  4. Compare the mapped candidates by distance from your chosen place and by whether the record identifies them as confirmed. A map pin is a starting point for checking the record, not a reason to infer public access or a visible crater rim.

Why a circular feature is not proof of impact

The U.S. Geological Survey cautions: “There are many natural processes other than impacts that can create circular features and depressions on the surface of the Earth.” Glaciation, volcanism, sinkholes, atolls, salt domes, intrusions, hydrothermal explosions, and mines or quarries can all produce features that look circular or crater-like. See the USGS explanation of circular features.

If you find an intriguing feature that is not listed as a confirmed impact structure, describe it as a candidate or possible structure. Satellite imagery can help people notice features, but visual resemblance alone cannot establish their origin.

What confirmation involves

For a suspected new impact structure, USGS points to the University of New Brunswick Planetary and Space Science Centre as a resource for confirmation and directs readers to its Earth Impact Database and guidance. Relevant evidence can include shatter cones, high-pressure mineral polymorphs and impact melt breccias. These are geological indicators; a circular outline on a map or in an image does not demonstrate them.

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Check visibility and access before making a trip

Not every confirmed structure is an obvious surface crater. Some are subtle, buried or eroded, as NASA’s account of the newly confirmed Uhackatik structure illustrates. That account, published September 15, 2026, put the global total at roughly 200 confirmed impact structures—an approximate, dated count that may change as discoveries and records change: NASA Earth Observatory on impact craters.

Before travelling, check local land ownership, access rules and any site restrictions. The map does not establish that a location is open to visitors, and this article does not verify access for any particular structure.

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