Geochemical evidence from the Sudbury structure for crustal redistribution by large bolide impacts

James E. Mungall (), Doreen E. Ames and Jacob J. Hanley
Additional contact information
James E. Mungall: University of Toronto
Doreen E. Ames: Natural Resources Canada
Jacob J. Hanley: University of Toronto

Nature, 2004, vol. 429, issue 6991, 546-548

Abstract: Abstract Deformation and melting of the crust during the formation of large impact craters must have been important during the Earth's early evolution, but such processes remain poorly understood1. The 1.8-billion-year-old Sudbury structure2 in Ontario, Canada, is greater than 200 km in diameter and preserves a complete impact section, including shocked basement rocks, an impact melt sheet and fallback material3,4. It has generally been thought that the most voluminous impact melts represent the average composition of the continental crust4, but here we show that the melt sheet now preserved as the Sudbury Igneous Complex is derived predominantly from the lower crust. We therefore infer that the hypervelocity impact caused a partial inversion of the compositional layering of the continental crust. Using geochemical data, including platinum-group-element abundances, we also show that the matrix of the overlying clast-laden Onaping Formation represents a mixture of the original surficial sedimentary strata, shock-melted lower crust and the impactor itself.

Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02577 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:429:y:2004:i:6991:d:10.1038_nature02577

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature02577

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().