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A search for shocked quartz grains and impact ejecta in early Silurian sediments on Gotland, Sweden

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Birger Schmitz ,
Lennart Jeppsson  and
Johan Ekvall
Birger Schmitz
Affiliation:
Department of Marine Geology, Box 7064, University of Göteborg, S-402 32 Göteborg, Sweden
Lennart Jeppsson
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Sölvegatan 13, University of Lund, S-223 62 Lund, Sweden
Johan Ekvall
Affiliation:
Department of Marine Geology, Box 7064, University of Göteborg, S-402 32 Göteborg, Sweden
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Abstract

All bentonite and bentonite-resembling layers thicker than a few millimetres from a 120m-thick Early Silurian sequence on Gotland, Sweden, were searched for shocked quartz grains of comet or asteroid impact origin. Although more than 200000 quartz grains from 86 bentonite samples were studied, not one single grain with multiple planar shock features was found. The studied sequence represents sedimentation during a period of about 2 million years. Impact frequencies, estimated from the cratering record and astronomical observations, indicate that during a 2-myr- period on average 20 comet or asteroid bodies larger than 0.5 km in diameter strike the Earth. The number of smaller impacting bodies is many times higher. In the light of this high frequency of impacts, the absence of any shocked-quartz-bearing fallout layer in our sequence indicates that lateral spreading of such ejecta is relatively restricted during small- and medium-scale impact events.

The results also show that shocked quartz in general is absent or extremely rare in volcanic ash. This strengthens the case for an impact-related origin of shocked quartz grains in the Cretaceous–Tertiary boundary days.

Type
Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 131 , Issue 3 , May 1994 , pp. 361 - 367
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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