Qualla: Spider Crater https://qualla.com/spider-crater en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:27 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/q/v/1/8/spider-crater-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Spider Crater https://qualla.com/spider-crater Spider Crater: Introduction https://qualla.com/spider-crater/ Photo credit Koolpin Gorge, CC BY-SA 3.0. From the ground, you'd never know it was there. The terrain around Spider Crater is so rugged that the site remains effectively inaccessible — no trail leads to it, no tourist bus makes a stop. But look down from altitude, and the shape announces itself immediately: a perfect spider, radiating white quartzite ridges in every direction from a central point, preserved in ancient rock like an insect caught in amber. The Kimberley keeps its strangest secrets for those who approach from above.

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Image: Koolpin Gorge | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:05:37 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/v/1/8/spider-crater-wp/qv18-spider-crater-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Spider Crater: A Puzzle in the Rock https://qualla.com/spider-crater/ Photo credit Public domain. Geologists noticed something odd about this patch of the Kimberley in the 1950s. The rock formations didn't behave the way they should — the quartzite ridges radiated outward in an unusual pattern, suggesting some violent deformation in the distant past. For decades it remained u...

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Image: Public domain

]]> Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:05:37 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/v/1/8/spider-crater-wp/qv18-spider-crater-a-puzzle-in-the-rock.mp3 0:06 2 full Spider Crater: What the Shape Tells Us https://qualla.com/spider-crater/ Photo credit Public domain. The outer limits of the disturbance extend across a subcircular area roughly 11 by 13 kilometres in diameter. The central area bearing shatter cones is interpreted as the relic of a central uplift — the rebound that occurs after a large impact, when compressed rock springs back u...

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Image: Public domain

]]> Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:05:37 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/v/1/8/spider-crater-wp/qv18-spider-crater-what-the-shape-tells-us.mp3 0:06 3 full Spider Crater: Deep Time https://qualla.com/spider-crater/ Photo credit Public domain. When did it happen? The age of the Spider impact is not precisely known. The evidence places it after the gentle folding of the Palaeoproterozoic quartzite that forms the visible ridges, but before a later regional episode of glacial erosion. If that bracket is correct, the impac...

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Image: Public domain

]]> Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:05:37 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/v/1/8/spider-crater-wp/qv18-spider-crater-deep-time.mp3 0:06 4 full Spider Crater: Seen Only from Above https://qualla.com/spider-crater/ Photo credit Public domain. Spider Crater sits 18 kilometres east of the Mount Barnett Roadhouse on the Gibb River Road — close enough on a map to seem reachable, but separated from any observer on the ground by terrain that simply does not permit approach. Its fame, such as it is, rests entirely on aerial ...

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Image: Public domain

]]> Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:05:37 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/v/1/8/spider-crater-wp/qv18-spider-crater-seen-only-from-above.mp3 0:06 5 full