Acta Musei Moraviae

Illusion known as „Czech Crater“ (book review)

The book “Czech Crater” from Petr Rajlich represents a new manipulative and highly speculative type of geological literature in Czech Republic. Without any real evidence, the author presents imaginary Proterozoic impact producing “Czech Crater” of 290×240 km in diameter. The book commonly ignores or misinterprets modern studies in fields of structural geology, petrology, geochemistry and geochronology. Alleged “recrystallized pseudotachylites” are actually ordinary garnet migmatites, deformed quartz grains are nothing but tectonically fractured quartz in pegmatites and metamorphic boudins, putative “shocked” garnets originated during Variscan migmatization. In case of Saidenbach microdiamonds author simply ignores or misinterprets all scientific studies that were written about the locality. The concept of “Czech crater” represents a clearly mistaken, publicity-searching speculation which was fully accepted only by its author.