page_title: Lake Bosumtwi
section_title: Impact crater
hierarchical_section_title: Lake Bosumtwi / Impact crater
caption_attribution_description: English: Planar deformation features under the scanning electron microscope and optical microscope (U-stage) from the Bosumtwi impact crater. Source: Losiak et al. 2016. WIP: A Web-based program for indexing planar features in quartz grains and its usage. Meteoritics and Planetary Science DOI: 10.1111/maps.12614 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/maps.12614/abstract
context_page_description: Lake Bosumtwi is the only natural lake in Ghana. It is situated within an ancient impact crater that is about 10.5 kilometres in diameter. It is about 30 km south-east of Kumasi the capital of Ashanti and is a popular recreational area. There are about 30 villages near crater lake Lake Bosumtwi, with a combined population of about 70,000 Ashanti people. The most popular amongst the villages where tourists usually settle is Abono.
  The Ashanti consider Bosumtwi a sacred lake. According to traditional belief, the souls of the dead come here to bid farewell to the goddess Asase Ya. Because of this, it is considered permissible to fish in the lake only from wooden planks. Among the fish species in the lake is the endemic cichlid Hemichromis frempongi, and the near-endemic cichlids Tilapia busumana and T. discolor.
context_section_description: The Lake Bosumtwi impact crater is 10.5 km (6.5 mi) in diameter, slightly larger than the present lake which is approximately 8 km (5.0 mi) across, and is estimated to be 1.07 million years old (Pleistocene period). There is a highly speculative theory that connects this event to the short-term Jaramillo geomagnetic reversal.
  Depth of crater is approximately 380 m (1,250 ft), but, if counted together with the depth of lake sediments - 750 m (2,460 ft).
  The crater has been partly eroded, and is situated in dense rainforest, making it difficult to study and confirm its origin by meteorite impact. Shock features such as shatter cones are largely overgrown by vegetation or covered by the lake. However, drilling of the crater's central uplift beneath the lake floor has recently provided an abundance of shocked materials for scientific study. Tektites, believed to be from this impact, are found in the neighbouring country of Ivory Coast, and related microtektites have been found in deep sea sediments west of the African continent.
  A work based on a statistical study of past numerical orbital simulations of the impact event asserts that the possible origin of the impactor is an asteroid coming from the middle main-belt at a high inclination (>17 degrees).
caption: Planar deformation features from the Bosumtwi impact crater visible under the optical and scanning electron microscope.[8]
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