The crater is not exposed to the surface, but was discovered using seismic techniques, and the structure has produced oil since its discovery in 1972. Red Wing is in diameter, and it is buried at a depth of about The age of the structure is estimated at 200 ± 25 million years (
Triassic). The Red Wing Creek structure shows up well in seismic studies. The underlying
Ordovician rocks are overlain by disturbed
Devonian and
Mississippian rocks. The structural disturbance is filled by thick rocks of
Jurassic age, suggesting that the impact took place during the
Triassic.
Shell Oil Company drilled exploratory wells on the Red Wing Creek structure in 1965 and 1968. These wells did not find oil, but did indicate very thick sections of
Mississippian and
Pennsylvanian rocks. In 1972, True Oil Company drilled a well that discovered oil. This discovery had an oil column that was about thick instead of the normal . This thick oil column was because the rocks were tilted on their sides. The discovery of oil led to intense geological and geophysical studies of the Red Wing Creek area. In 1996, Christian Koeberl and his colleagues discovered
planar deformation features (PDFs) in samples from two oil wells at the center of the structure. This provided unambiguous evidence for shock metamorphism, and confirmed the impact origin of the Red Wing Creek structure. == Hypothetical multiple impact event ==