crater
craters
A crater is a roundish dent left in the surface of something by the impact of something else. Look at the moon: it's covered in craters from thousands of impacts over millions of years.
Once in a while, you might hear the word crater used as a verb, as in, "His career really cratered when he started drinking. But you'll usually hear crater used as a noun to refer to a bowl-shaped depression left behind by an explosion or impact. Outside Flagstaff, Arizona, you'll find Meteor Crater, one of the most well-defined impact craters on the surface of the Earth. It's almost a mile across, even though the meteor that created it was less than 100 yards in diameter.
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a bowl-shaped geological formation at the top of a volcano
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synonyms:
volcanic crater
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types:
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caldera
a large crater caused by the violent explosion of a volcano that collapses into a depression
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maar
a flat-bottomed volcanic crater that was formed by an explosion; often filled with water
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type of:
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formation, geological formation
(geology) the geological features of the earth
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caldera
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a bowl-shaped depression formed by the impact of a meteorite or bomb
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examples:
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Aristarchus
a bright crater on the Moon
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Copernicus
a conspicuous crater on the Moon
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types:
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collector
a crater that has collected cosmic material hitting the earth
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lunar crater
a crater on the Earth's Moon
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type of:
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depression, natural depression
a sunken or depressed geological formation
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Aristarchus
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