for the french navy officer, see jacques bedout bedout , or more specifically the bedout high, is a geological and geophysical feature centered about 250&nbsp;km off the northwestern coast of australia in the canning and overlying roebuck basins. although not obvious from sea floor topography, it is a roughly circular area about 30&nbsp;km in diameter where older rocks have been uplifted as much as 4&nbsp;km towards the surface.gorter j.d. 1996. speculation on the origin of the bedout high - a large, circular structure of pre-mesozoic age in the offshore canning basin, western australia. pesa news, october/november 1996, p. 32-34. the bedout high was penetrated by two petroleum exploration wells (bedout-1, lagrange-1) in the 1970s and 1980s. it is named after nearby bedout island. ==impact hypothesis== in 1996 australian geologist john gorter first suggested that the bedout high might mark the centre of a very large buried impact crater up to 250&nbsp;km in diameter, based mainly on its internal geological structure as revealed on a single seismic survey line, and suggested that it may be of near end permian age, based on the reported age of volcanic rocks in lagrange-1.gorter j.d. 1998. the petroleum potential of australian phanerozoic impact structures. the appea journal 38, 159-187. the impact hypothesis was developed further by luanne becker (university of california) and coworkers who claimed to have confirmed that the supposed volcanic rocks in the petroleum wells are actually impact melt breccia showing evidence of shock metamorphism, and re-dated these rocks at 250.1 Â± 4.5 ma.becker l., poreda r.j., basu a.r., pope k.o., harrison t.m., nicholson c. & iasky r. 2004. bedout: a possible end-permian impact crater offshore of northwestern australia. science 304, 1469-1476. abstract the new age is essentially coincident with the permian-triassic boundary and associated extinction event, and becker speculates that there is a likely connection. it was subsequently reported, based on very limited preliminary data, that the impact hypothesis is further supported by chromium isotope evidence for the presence of extraterrestrial material.becker l., shukolyukov a., macassic c., lugmair g. & poreda r. 2006. extraterrestrial chromium at the graphite peak p/tr boundary and in the bedout impact melt breccia. lunar and planetary science xxxvii (2006), abstract # 2321.pdf ==rebuttals to the impact hypothesis== the bedout impact hypothesis has not been widely supported by impact cratering specialists. specific counter claims include: # the alleged impact melt breccia actually has the characteristics of a volcanic [
Geology_of_Western_Australia Impact_craters_of_Australia Permian_impact_craters Possible_impact_craters_on_Earth