Probing the hydrothermal system of the Chicxulub impact crater

AAAS Science Advances Magazine article by David A. Kring, Martin Schmieder, et al (Dr Kring is Barringer Crater company’s Scientific Advisor)

AAAS Image: (A to K) Hand specimen (C and J), optical microscopic (B, E, I, and K), and backscattered electron images (A, D, F, G, and H) of hydrothermal alteration minerals in the Chicxulub peak ring, presented in order of increasing depth.

The ~180-km-diameter Chicxulub peak-ring crater and ~240-km multiring basin, produced by the impact that terminated the Cretaceous, is the largest remaining intact impact basin on Earth. International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) and International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) Expedition 364 drilled to a depth of 1335 m below the sea floor into the peak ring, providing a unique opportunity to study the thermal and chemical modification of Earth’s crust caused by the impact. The recovered core shows the crater hosted a spatially extensive hydrothermal system that chemically and mineralogically modified ~1.4 × 105 km3 of Earth’s crust, a volume more than nine times that of the Yellowstone Caldera system. Initially, high temperatures of 300° to 400°C and an independent geomagnetic polarity clock indicate the hydrothermal system was long lived, in excess of 106 years. Read More