RESEARCH ARTICLE Characteristic landforms and geomorphic features associated with impact structures: Observations at the Dhala structure, north-central India Anuj Kumar Singh 1 | Jayanta Kumar Pati 1,2 | Rajiv Sinha 3 | Wolf Uwe Reimold 4 | Kuldeep Prakash 1 | Mohammad Nadeem 1 | Shivanshu Dwivedi 1 | Dhananjay Mishra 1 | Akhil Kumar Dwivedi 1 1 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Nehru Science Centre, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, 211002, India 2 National Centre of Experimental Mineralogy and Petrology, 14 Chatham Lines, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, 211002, India 3 Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, 208016, India 4 Laboratory of Geochronology and Isotope Geochemistry, Instituto de Geociências, Universidade de Brasília, CEP 70910-900, Brasília, DF, Brazil Correspondence Jayanta Kumar Pati, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Nehru Science Centre, University of Allahabad, Allahabad-211002, India. Email: jkpati@gmail.com Funding information Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, Government of India, Grant/Award Number: IF170168; Ministry of Environment Abstract Geomorphological study of some of the just more than 200 known terrestrial impact structures has demonstrated that despite extensive degradation, important geomorphological keys, such as drainage pattern, topographic signatures, erosional landforms, and depositional features, can still be assessed. They can provide possible indicators to assist in the recognition of further impact structures, especially on Pre- cambrian shields and cratonic landmasses. This study documents the surface features and landforms of the Paleoproterozoic, about 11 km diameter Dhala impact structure in India. The Dhala structure has an estimated age that is constrained stratigraphically between 1.7 and 2.5 Ga. This structure is deeply eroded, and barely has a morpho- logical resemblance to other known terrestrial or extraterrestrial impact structures. We have analyzed the operative surface-forming processes for the Dhala area. We demand to continue the in-depth study of all terrestrial impact structures, especially the pre-Paleozoic ones, so that geomorphological criteria can be rigorously constrained and applied in conjunction with a priori remote sensing and field data to support the identification of new structures prior to their ultimate confirmation using diagnostic evidence of shock metamorphism. KEYWORDS Dhala impact structure, Drainage pattern, Landforms, Precambrian impact record, Surface features 1 | INTRODUCTION Impact cratering studies have become a fundamental, multi- disciplinary, and well integrated research area in Earth and Planetary Sciences in the past decades. Impacts of asteroids and comets have left conspicuous geomorphological footprints on the surfaces of solid planetary bodies (e.g., Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the Moon) in the form of innumerable impact structures (e.g., Gilbert, 1893; Baldwin, 1978; Melosh, 1989, 2011; French, 1998; French & Koeberl, 2010). On most planetary bodies, well preserved impact structures are recog- nized by their characteristic morphologies, associated rock types (impactites), and consequent landforms. The current understanding of asteroidal and cometary impacts onto planetary surfaces is critically based on the outcomes of the detailed studies of many of the about 200 confirmed terrestrial impact structures of post-Archaean age (Earth Impact Database, 2020; Gottwald et al., 2020). These struc- tures occur in various states of preservation on the surface and at subsurface levels. Only about 15% of the terrestrial impact structures are of pre-Palaeozoic age (e.g., Schmieder & Kring, 2020; Gottwald et al., 2020). In comparison to other terrestrial planets, the Earth, likely from close to the time of its formation, has been the subject of dynamic geological (e.g., uplift and subsidence) and active surface processes (weathering and erosion by various geological agents such as rivers, oceans, wind and glaciers, sedimentation, magmatism, deformation, metamorphism, etc.). Thus, our planet has the comparatively most lim- ited spatio-temporal record of impact events in the Solar System (e.g., Therriault et al., 2002). These terrestrial surface processes have Received: 27 August 2020 Revised: 23 February 2021 Accepted: 28 February 2021 DOI: 10.1002/esp.5115 Earth Surf. Process. Landforms. 2021;1–22. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/esp © 2021 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1