Liverpool is a meteorite impact crater situated in Arnhem Land within the Northern Territory. It was named after the nearby
Liverpool River. The site is remote and difficult to access.
The crater has a raised near circular rim averaging about 1.6 km in diameter. It was first noticed by geologists during reconnaissance geological mapping in the 1960s.
The crater lies within flat-lying Paleoproterozoic
sandstone of the McArthur Basin. This
sandstone has been fractured and brecciated by the impact event to form the rim. Flat-lying and non-deformed
sandstone that must have been deposited after the impact event is exposed within the center of
the crater. Because
the crater is quite
well preserved, it can be argued that it was buried by younger sedimentary
rock soon after the impact event; this younger
rock has now been mostly eroded away except in
the crater center.
The crater filling
sandstone was originally thought to be of Cretaceous age, leading to the Cretaceous age listed for
the crater in older literature sources. However, more recent studies suggest that the infilling
rock is more likely to be of Neoproterozoic age (1000-543 Ma) and therefore
the crater is more likely to have formed at some time during the Neoproterozoic. No meteorite fragments have been found at the site. This is not surprising considering its great age; such fragments would have weathered away. Evidence supporting an impact origin includes the geological structure of
the crater, and the discovery of shocked quartz.
The crater is not perfectly circular, but is about 6% broader in a northeast-southwest direction and the internal parts of
the crater are also asymmetric is such a way as to imply that the impact was oblique from the southwest