The Ilumetsa site, in Estonia, consists of two round, rimmed structures that are 725 m apart. The structures are listed as proven impact craters in the Impact Earth database, despite lack of commonly accepted, unequivocal proof of extraterrestrial collision identified at this location. We excavated trenches though the Ilumetsa Large and Ilumetsa Small structures and found small pieces of charcoal within the putative proximal ejecta in both structures, in a similar geological setting as previously identified charcoal in Kaali (Losiak et al. 2016) and Morasko craters (see Szokaluk et al. 2019). Our ¹⁴C dating of charcoal allowed us to conclude that these crater‐like features formed simultaneously between 7170 and 7000 cal. years bp, about 7 ka after deglaciation of this area. A ground penetrating radar survey of the nearby bog shows that no additional Ilumetsa structures bigger than 40 m exist. Geochemical studies of the ejecta and a search using a metal detector did not reveal any clear indication of extraterrestrial material. This suggests Ilumetsa may have been formed by an impact of stony‐iron or stony body, which got significantly weathered in a wet‐temperate climate. The mystery of the formation of the structures at Ilumetsa remains; however, due to significant circumstantial evidence discussed herein, we are confident to call it a “probable” impact site.

中文翻译：

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确定Ilumetsa结构（爱沙尼亚）的地外冲击形成机理的年龄和可能性

爱沙尼亚的Ilumetsa厂址由两个圆形的，有边缘的结构组成，相距725 m。尽管没有在该位置识别出的公认的外星碰撞证据，但该结构仍被列为“撞击地球”数据库中已被证实的撞击坑。我们通过Ilumetsa大型和Ilumetsa小型结构开挖了沟渠，并在两个结构的推定近端喷射口内发现了小块木炭，其地质环境与先前在Kaali（Losiak等人，2016）和Morasko陨石坑（见Szokaluk）中发现的木炭相似等（2019）。我们对木炭的¹⁴ C测年使我们可以得出结论，这些火山口状特征在7170至7000 cal之间同时形成。年bp，在该地区冰消后大约7 ka。对附近沼泽的探地雷达调查显示，不存在其他大于40 m的Ilumetsa结构。喷射物的地球化学研究以及使用金属探测器的搜索都没有发现任何明显的外星物质迹象。这表明Ilumetsa可能是由石铁或石质的撞击形成的，这些石在潮湿的温带气候中风化得很明显。伊卢梅萨（Ilumetsa）结构形成的奥秘仍然存在；但是，由于此处讨论的大量间接证据，我们有信心将其称为“可能”的影响地点。