More info on antarctic meteorite.

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Sujet : More info on antarctic meteorite.
De : eastside.erik (at) *nospam* gmail.com (erik simpson)
Groupes : sci.bio.paleontology
Date : 14. Apr 2025, 06:13:21
Autres entêtes
Message-ID : <ac935ce4-cc45-4747-a4c3-ba7a26d1a54e@gmail.com>
User-Agent : Mozilla Thunderbird
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008GC002149
Abstract
[1] New details on the east Antarctic gravity field from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission reveal a prominent positive free-air gravity anomaly over a roughly 500-km diameter subglacial basin centered on (70°S, 120°E) in north central Wilkes Land. This regional inverse correlation between topography and gravity is quantitatively consistent with thinned crust from a giant meteorite impact underlain by an isostatically disturbed mantle plug. The inferred impact crater is nearly three times the size of the Chicxulub crater and presumably formed before the Cretaceous formation of the east Antarctic coast that cuts the projected ring faults. It extensively thinned and disrupted the Wilkes Land crust where the Kerguelen hot spot and Gondwana rifting developed but left the adjacent Australian block relatively undisturbed. The micrometeorite and fossil evidence suggests that the impact may have occurred at the beginning of the greatest extinction of life on Earth at ∼260 Ma when the Siberian Traps were effectively antipodal to it. Antipodal volcanism is common to large impact craters of the Moon and Mars and may also account for the antipodal relationships of essentially half of the Earth's large igneous provinces and hot spots. Thus, the impact may have triggered the “Great Dying” at the end of the Permian and contributed to the development of the hot spot that produced the Siberian Traps and now may underlie Iceland. The glacial ice up to a few kilometers thick that has covered the crater for the past 30–40 Ma poses formidable difficulties to sampling the subglacial geology. Thus, the most expedient and viable test of the prospective crater is to survey it for relevant airborne gravity and magnetic anomalies.
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3. Discussion
[23] Our analysis suggests that the terrain and GRACE gravity data can be explained by the crustal effects of a giant impact in Wilkes Land. Unfortunately, the geological details of the inferred impact site are completely masked by a few kilometers of overlying glacial ice. However, possible impact evidence has been reported from the Permian-Triassic boundary beds at Graphite Peak in the central Transantarctic Mountains (TAM). This evidence includes small chondritic meteorite fragments [Basu et al., 2003], fullerenes with extraterrestrial noble gas abundances and isotope ratios [Poreda and Becker, 2003], and a faint iridium anomaly [Retallack et al., 1998]. The strength of this evidence has been debated [e.g., Collinson et al., 2006] and obviously limited by the apparent absence of a source crater. However, the putative crater clearly may be a source of the Graphite Peak data and thus may yield new insights on a possible late Permian impact origin for the great mass extinction. In view of its potential geological significance, we investigate below additional constraints on the possible crustal properties and evolution of the inferred Wilkes Land impact.

Date Sujet#  Auteur
14 Apr 25 o More info on antarctic meteorite.1erik simpson

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