Why isn't documenting meteorites stressed enough?

Paul Heinrich
Sun Mar 14 21:37:52 EDT 2010

cdtucson wrote:

>Interesting points here.
>Falls a bit outside of the field of meteoritics but, still a
>fair use for old strewnfield co-ords.
>I wonder Paul. Has this data ever been used in such a way?

I do not know of meteorite strew fields being used this way
specifically. However, the strewn fields for impact ejecta
have been used widely in geology as part of a field of
geologic research called "Impact stratigraphy,"which
a subdivision of "event stratigraphy".

Go see:

Keller, G., 2008, Impact stratigraphy: Old principle, new
reality. In The Sedimentary Record of Meteorite Impacts,
Special Papers no. 437, Geological Society of America.

http://specialpapers.gsapubs.org/content/437/147.abstract

and Montanari, A., 2000, Impact Stratigraphy. Lecture
notes in earth sciences no. 93. Springer, New York.

http://openlibrary.org/b/OL18113398M/Impact_stratigraphy

One extreme example is the way that the Cretaceous- Tertiary
ejecta layer has been used a global time-stratigrapher marker.
Also, the tektites, mainly the microtektites, of the Australasian
tektite strewn field has been used as time-stratigraphic marker
bed in correlating deep sea cores, Chinese loess deposits, and
for use in geomorphic studies. One archaeological site in
China is dated by Australasian tektites. Similarly, iridium
anomalies and microtektites have been used to correlate
Eocene deposits in Europe. Most recently, impact ejecta
from the Sudbury impact has been to correlate Precambrain
strata in the Lake Superior region and the ejecta from other
Precambrian ejecta have been used to correlate Precambrian
strata across Australia and Africa.

Examples of using the ejecta strewn field of Precambrian
impacts to correlate and date Precambrian strata can found in:

Gostin, V. A., P. W. Haines, R. J. F. Jenkins, W. Compston,
and I. S. Williams, 1986, Impact ejecta horizon within late
Precambrian shales, Adelaide Geosyncline, South Australia.
Science. vol. 233, pp. 198-200.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/233/4760/198

Yours,

Paul