Source Stratum of Georgia Tektites Possibly Found

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Sat Aug 14 13:52:19 EDT 2004

The latest issue of Geology (Geological
Society of America) has a paper about
the identification of grains of shocked
quartz in a sand bed within Upper Eocene
strata of Georgia. The paper argued that
they might be from the Chesapeake Bay
Impact and occur within in the source
layer for Georgia tektites.

The article is:

Duncan, M. S., Albin, E. F., Harris, R. S.,
Roden M. F., Schroeder, P. A., Holland,
S. M. 2004, Upper Eocene impact horizon in
east-central Georgia. Geology. vol. 32,
no. 8, pp. 717-720.

http://www.gsajournals.org/gsaonline/?request=get-toc&issn=0091-7613&volume=32&issue=8

In part, the abstract stated:

"We report the discovery of shocked quartz
grains in upper Eocene sediments from the
Coastal Plain of east-central Georgia. ...
These grains were collected from a sand
layer near the base of the Twiggs Clay
Member of the Dry Branch Formation and
most likely are ejecta from the Chesapeake
Bay impact, which occurred between 35.7 and
36.0 Ma. ... This horizon could represent
the source stratum for the Georgia tektites ..."

Yours,

Paul
Baton Rouge, LA