India's third confirmed meteorite impact structure — a near-circular ring in the Vindhyan sandstone of south-east Rajasthan, long mistaken for an ordinary hill-ring before shatter cones gave it away.
Ramgarh is India’s third confirmed meteorite impact structure, alongside Lonar and the far older Dhala. It sits in the Vindhyan hills of south-east Rajasthan as a striking near-circular ring of raised sandstone, roughly 3–4 km across — which for decades was read as just an unusual set of hills. The village and a hilltop temple sit inside the bowl.
The impact reading was clinched by the tell-tale signatures a passing asteroid leaves in rock: shatter cones, planar deformation features in quartz, and iron-rich spherules enriched in nickel and cobalt. A 2020 study argued the visible ring is the eroded central uplift of a larger, ~10 km complex crater, and Ramgarh was recognised that year as India’s third — and Rajasthan’s only — confirmed impact site.
Its age is genuinely unsettled. The target is Neoproterozoic Vindhyan (Bhander Group) sandstone, so the impact must be younger than that; recent U–Pb work on shocked zircons points to roughly 530–395 million years ago, while other studies have argued for a much younger (~165 Ma) or older age. The site is now being developed as a geo-heritage destination.