New Meteorite Crater Discovered in New Mexico

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Wed Apr 16 09:54:43 EDT 2008

There is a paper, which is in press about the discovery of a new
meteorite structure in New Mexico. It is:

Fackelman, S. P. J. R. Morrow, C. Koeberl, T. H. McElvain, in press,
Shatter cone and microscopic shock-alteration evidence for a post-
Paleoproterozoic terrestrial impact structure near Santa Fe, New
Mexico, USA. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Accepted
Manuscript, Available online 7 April 2008,
doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2008.03.033 ( http://dx.doi.org)

The abstract reads in part:

“Field mapping, morphologic description, and petrographic
analysis of recently discovered shatter cones within
Paleoproterozoic crystalline rocks exposed over an area >5
km2, located ~8 km northeast of Santa Fe, New Mexico,
USA, give robust evidence of a previously unrecognized
terrestrial impact structure. Herein, we provisionally
name this the “Santa Fe impact structure”. The shatter
cones are composed of nested sub-conical, curviplanar,
and flat joint surfaces bearing abundant curved and
bifurcating striations that strongly resemble the multiply
striated joint surfaces (MSJS) documented from shatter
cones at Vredefort dome.”

and

“The PFs and PDFs are dominated by a basal (0001)
crystallographic orientation, which indicate a peak shock
pressure of ~5–10 GPa that is consistent with shatter
cone formation.”

Yours,

Paul H.