Vredefort is a small mixed farming town in the Free State Province of South Africa with cattle, groundnuts, sorghum, sunflowers and maize being farmed.
The town was established in 1876 on the largest and oldest visible meteorite impact site in the world (with a diameter of 300km). It was this approximately 10km wide meteorite that led to the formation of the gold-bearing reefs of the Free State some 2.02 billion years ago. The town got its name after the peaceful conclusion of a threatened war between the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The British built a concentration camp here during the Boer War to house Boer women and children.
The Vredefort Crater is one of the few multi-ringed craters on this planet. Multi-ringed craters are common on the Moon but are rare on Earth. This because they have been destroyed by geological processes and most were formed near the beginning of the planets formation. It was orginally thought that the dome in the centre of the crater was formed by a volcanic explosion however in the mid 1990s, evidence revealed that it was the site of a huge meteorite crater. Shatter cones are often discovered in the bed of the nearby Vaal River. The meteorite that hit Vredefort has been found to have been one of the largest ever to have hit Earth at over 10km wide (6 miles).
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