In the Footsteps of Warren B. Hamilton: New Ideas in Earth Science

0564171 - ÚSMH 2023 RIV US eng M - Monography Chapter
Mizera, Jiří - Řanda, Z. - Suchý, V. - Strunga, V. - Klokočník, J. - Kostelecký, J. - Bezděk, A. - Moravec, Z.
Parent crater for Australasian tektites beneath the sands of the Alashan Desert, Northwest China: Best candidate ever?
In the Footsteps of Warren B. Hamilton: New Ideas in Earth Science. Vol. 553. GSA Special Papers. Boulder: The Geological Society of America, 2022 - (Goulger, G.; Hamilton, L.; Jurdy, D.; Stein, C.; Howard, K.; Stein, S.), s. 323-334. ISBN 978-08-1372-553-6
Institutional support: RVO:67985891
Keywords : Australasian tektites * Badain Jaran * Alashan desert
OECD category: Geology
https://doi.org/10.1130/2021.2553(25)

Australasian tektites represent the largest group of tektites on Earth, and their strewn field covers up to one sixth of Earth’s surface. After several decades of fruitless quest for a parent crater for Australasian tektites, mostly in the main part of the strewn field in Indochina, the crater remains undiscovered. We elaborate upon a recently suggested original hypothesis for the impact in the Alashan Desert in Northwest China. Evidence from geochemical and isotopic compositions of potential source materials, gravity data, and geographic, paleoenvironmental, and ballistic considerations support a possible impact site in the Badain Jaran part of the Alashan Desert. In further support of an impact location in China, glassy microspherules recovered from Chinese loess may be the right age to relate to the Australasian tektite event, perhaps as part of the impacting body. The most serious shortcomings of the commonly accepted Indochina impact location include signs of little chemical weathering of source materials of Australasian tektites, unlike highly weathered sedimentary targets in Indochina, and questionable assumptions about transport of distal ejecta.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0335850