27.0000°S, 27.5000°E.
Largest verified impact crater on Earth, in the Free State province of South Africa. Original crater diameter: approximately 300 km. Age: 2.023 billion years. The impactor, estimated at 10–15 km diameter, struck during the Paleoproterozoic when atmospheric oxygen was just beginning to rise to modern levels. The visible surface feature today is the central Vredefort Dome — a 90-km-diameter ring of upturned bedrock (the rebounded central peak), surrounded by the eroded remnants of the larger ring structure. The Witwatersrand goldfields, which have produced an estimated 40% of all gold ever mined on Earth, are localized in shocked sedimentary basin remnants exposed by the impact and uplifted by the rebound. The 100-km-diameter Vredefort Dome was inscribed UNESCO World Heritage 2005.
An asteroid hit Earth two billion years ago and mixed up the rock so thoroughly that 40% of the gold ever mined came out of the same fault scar.