Petrological and Geochemical Analyses of Impact Breccias and Melts Recovered by the Chicxulub Scientific Drilling Project (CSDP), Mexico

University Of Arizona, Tucson AZ

Investigators

Abstract

0207658 Kring The International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) is funding the drilling of a 2km hole in the Chicxulub impact crater on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. NSF is funding US investigators to analyze core samples from the Chicxulub Scientific Drilling Project (CSDP). The Chicxulub crater is one of the world's largest impact craters and has been linked to the mass extnction event at the Cretaceous - Tertiary (K/T) boundary ~65 million years ago. As part of the CSDP Science Team, the PIs will provide a general description of the core for the broader scientific community, so that they can request appropriate samples for their studies. They will also provide an initial set of detailed analyses to characterize the impact lithologies in the core to better understand the formation of the Chicxulub crater, its thermal evolution as it cooled over a period of ~100,000 years, and the consequences it may have had for the environment. The project will include petrographic, chemical, and isotopic analyses of surviving target lithologies and shock-metamorphosed products of the impact event. ***