Qualla: Tenoumer Crater https://qualla.com/tenoumer-crater en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:09 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/e/u/0/d/tenoumer-crater-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Tenoumer Crater https://qualla.com/tenoumer-crater Tenoumer Crater: Introduction https://qualla.com/tenoumer-crater/ Photo credit Michael Dennig, Public domain. From above, it looks too perfect to be natural - a ring nearly two kilometers across, drawn into the desert with the precision of a compass. Tenoumer sits alone in the western Sahara of Mauritania, far from any road, its rim rising about 100 meters above the flat surrounding plain. For years geologists argued over what made it. The answer, when it came, was violent: something fell out of the sky and struck the Earth hard enough to melt solid rock.

Read more: Tenoumer Crater on Qualla

Image: Michael Dennig | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/u/0/d/tenoumer-crater-wp/eu0d-tenoumer-crater-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Tenoumer Crater: The Argument Over the Circle https://qualla.com/tenoumer-crater/ Photo credit Michael Dennig, Public domain. Tenoumer's near-perfect geometry was a puzzle. Scattered around its rim, researchers found basalt and rhyodacite - volcanic rocks - and for a time a volcanic origin seemed plausible. A crater this round could be the throat of an extinct volcano. But the evidence kept pointing els...

Read more: Tenoumer Crater on Qualla

Image: Michael Dennig | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/u/0/d/tenoumer-crater-wp/eu0d-tenoumer-crater-the-argument-over-the-circle.mp3 0:06 2 full Tenoumer Crater: Older Than It Looks https://qualla.com/tenoumer-crater/ Photo credit Michael Dennig, Public domain. Dating the crater has been its own kind of argument. An early estimate placed the impact at 21,400 years ago - give or take nearly 10,000 - which would make it a strikingly recent wound, a thing that happened while humans were already painting cave walls. More recent work, publis...

Read more: Tenoumer Crater on Qualla

Image: Michael Dennig | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/u/0/d/tenoumer-crater-wp/eu0d-tenoumer-crater-older-than-it-looks.mp3 0:06 3 full Tenoumer Crater: A Wound in Ancient Stone https://qualla.com/tenoumer-crater/ Photo credit Michael Dennig, Public domain. What the impactor struck was not young rock. Tenoumer punched through gneiss and granite belonging to a Precambrian peneplain - a surface worn nearly flat over hundreds of millions of years, then thinly veiled by far more recent Pliocene sediments. In an instant, that long-settle...

Read more: Tenoumer Crater on Qualla

Image: Michael Dennig | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/u/0/d/tenoumer-crater-wp/eu0d-tenoumer-crater-a-wound-in-ancient-stone.mp3 0:06 4 full Tenoumer Crater: The Loneliest Landmark https://qualla.com/tenoumer-crater/ Photo credit Michael Dennig, Public domain. Few places on Earth are harder to reach. Tenoumer lies in Mauritania's Tiris Zemmour region, roughly 200 kilometers from the iron-mining town of Zouerat - and that last stretch means hours of off-road driving across open Sahara in a four-wheel drive. There is no settlement at the...

Read more: Tenoumer Crater on Qualla

Image: Michael Dennig | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/u/0/d/tenoumer-crater-wp/eu0d-tenoumer-crater-the-loneliest-landmark.mp3 0:06 5 full