Chicxlub: from crater to mass extinction. (FOD40)

This project aims at gaining a holistic understanding of the succession of events that took place across the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary, 66 million years ago, exploiting on the new +-1500m long core drilled by the joint International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) - International Continental Scientific Drilling Project (ICDP) within the central part of the Chicxlub crater (+-200km) in Yucatan. The thick sequence of impactites, and the shocked basement lithologies recovered by this large-scale international endeavour will be examined in terms of petrography, geochemistry, shock metamorphism, etc. to gain knowledge of the crater formation process; with a particular emphasis on the rise of the still poorly inderstood central peak-ring structure, the distribution of melt and the formation of ejecta, on a planet with thick atmisphere.

Keywords:petrography, geochemistry, shock metamorphism

Disciplines:Geochemistry not elsewhere classified