The first day of the Cenozoic

Highly expanded Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary section from the Chicxulub peak ring, recovered by International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP)-International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) Expedition 364, provides an unprecedented window into the immediate aftermath of the impact. Site M0077 includes ∼130 m of impact melt rock and suevite deposited the first day of the Cenozoic covered by <1 m of micrite-rich carbonate deposited over subsequent weeks to years. We present an interpreted series of events based on analyses of these drill cores. Within minutes of the impact, centrally uplifted basement rock collapsed outward to forma peak ring capped in melt rock. Within tens of minutes, the peak ring was covered in ∼40 m of brecciated impact melt rock and coarsegrained suevite, including clasts possibly generated by melt-water interactions during ocean resurge. Within an hour, resurge crested the peak ring, depositing a 10-m-thick layer of suevite with increased particle roundness and sorting.Within hours, the full resurge deposit formed through settling and seiches, resulting in an 80-m-thick fining-upward, sorted suevite in the flooded crater. Within a day, the reflected rim-wave tsunami reached the crater, depositing a cross-bedded sand-to-fine gravel layer enriched in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons overlain by charcoal fragments. Generation of a deep crater open to the ocean allowed rapid flooding and sediment accumulation rates among the highest known in the geologic record. The high-resolution section provides insight into the impact environmental effects, including charcoal as evidence for impactinduced wildfires and a paucity of sulfur-rich evaporites from the target supporting rapid global cooling and darkness as extinction mechanisms

Stress‐Strain Evolution During Peak‐Ring Formation: A Case Study of the Chicxulub Impact Structure

International audienceDeformation is a ubiquitous process that occurs to rocks during impact cratering; thus, quantifying the deformation of those rocks can provide first‐order constraints on the process of impact cratering. Until now, specific quantification of the conditions of stress and strain within models of impact cratering has not been compared to structural observations. This paper describes a methodology to analyze stress and strain within numerical impact models. This method is then used to predict deformation and its cause during peak‐ring formation: a complex process that is not fully understood, requiring remarkable transient weakening and causing a significant redistribution of crustal rocks. The presented results are timely due to the recent Joint International Ocean Discovery Program and International Continental Scientific Drilling Program drilling of the peak ring within the Chicxulub crater, permitting direct comparison between the deformation history within numerical models and the structural history of rocks from a peak ring. The modeled results are remarkably consistent with observed deformation within the Chicxulub peak ring, constraining the following: (1) the orientation of rocks relative to their preimpact orientation; (2) total strain, strain rates, and the type of shear during each stage of cratering; and (3) the orientation and magnitude of principal stresses during each stage of cratering. The methodology and analysis used to generate these predictions is general and, therefore, allows numerical impact models to be constrained by structural observations of impact craters and for those models to produce quantitative predictions

Quantifying the release of climate-active gases by large meteorite impacts with a case study of Chicxulub.

9 pagesInternational audiencePotentially hazardous asteroids and comets have hit Earth throughout its history, with catastrophic consequences in the case of the Chicxulub impact. Here we reexamine one of the mechanisms that allow an impact to have a global effect—the release of climate-active gases from sedimentary rocks. We use the SOVA hydrocode and model ejected materials for a sufficient time after impact to quantify the volume of gases that reach high enough altitudes (> 25 km) to have global consequences. We vary impact angle, sediment thickness and porosity, water depth, and shock pressure for devolatilization and present the results in a dimensionless form so that the released gases can be estimated for any impact into a sedimentary target. Using new constraints on the Chicxulub impact angle and target composition, we estimate that 325 ± 130 Gt of sulfur and 425 ± 160 Gt CO2 were ejected and produced severe changes to the global climate

Expedition 364 preliminary report: Chicxulub: drilling the K-Pg impact crater.

38 pagesRapportThe Chicxulub impact crater, México, is unique. It is the only known terrestrial impact structure that has been directly linked to a mass extinction event and the only terrestrial impact with a global ejecta layer. Of the three largest impact structures on Earth, Chicxulub is the best preserved. Chicxulub is also the only known terrestrial impact structure with an intact, unequivocal topographic peak ring. Chicxulub’s role in the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction and its exceptional state of preservation make it an important natural laboratory for the study of both large impact crater formation on Earth and other planets and the effects of large impacts on the Earth’s environment and ecology. Our understanding of the impact process is far from complete, and despite more than 30 years of intense debate, we are still striving to answer the question as to why this impact was so catastrophic.During International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 364, Paleogene sediments and lithologies that make up the Chicxulub peak ring were cored to investigate (1) the nature and formational mechanism of peak rings, (2) how rocks are weakened during large impacts, (3) the nature and extent of post-impact hydrothermal circulation, (4) the deep biosphere and habitability of the peak ring, and (5) the recovery of life in a sterile zone. Other key targets included sampling the transition through a rare midlatitude section that might include Eocene and Paleocene hyperthermals and/or the Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM); the composition and character of the impact breccias, melt rocks, and peak-ring rocks; the sedimentology and stratigraphy of the Paleocene–Eocene Chicxulub impact basin infill; the chronology of the peak-ring rocks; and any observations from the core that may help us constrain the volume of dust and climatically active gases released into the stratosphere by this impact. Petrophysical property measurements on the core and wireline logs acquired during Expedition 364 will be used to calibrate geophysical models, including seismic reflection and potential field data, and the integration of all the data will calibrate impact crater models for crater formation and environmental effects. The proposed drilling directly contributes to IODP Science Plan goals:Climate and Ocean Change: How resilient is the ocean to chemical perturbations? The Chicxulub impact represents an external forcing event that caused a 75% level mass extinction. The impact basin may also record key hyperthermals within the Paleogene.Biosphere Frontiers: What are the origin, composition, and global significance of subseafloor communities? What are the limits of life in the subseafloor? How sensitive are ecosystems and biodiversity to environmental change? Impact craters can create habitats for subsurface life, and Chicxulub may provide information on potential habitats for life, including extremophiles, on the early Earth and other planetary bodies. Paleontological and geochemical studies at ground zero will document how large impacts affect ecosystems and effects on biodiversity.Earth Connections/Earth in Motion: What are the composition, structure and dynamics of Earth’s upper mantle? What mechanisms control the occurrence of destructive earthquakes, landslides, and tsunami? Mantle uplift in response to impacts provides insight into dynamics that differ between Earth and other rocky planets. Impacts generate earthquakes, landslides, and tsunami, and scales that generally exceed plate tectonic processes yield insight into effects, the geologic record, and potential hazards.IODP Expedition 364 was a Mission Specific Platform expedition to obtain subseabed samples and downhole logging measurements from the sedimentary cover sequence and peak ring of the Chicxulub impact crater. A single borehole was drilled into the Chicxulub impact crater on the Yucatán continental shelf, recovering core from 505.7 to 1334.73 m below seafloor with ~99% core recovery and acquiring downhole logs for the entire depth

Winding down the Chicxulub impact: The transition between impact and normal marine sedimentation near ground zero

International audienc

New shock microstructures in titanite (CaTiSiO5) from the peak ring of the Chicxulub impact structure, Mexico

Accessory mineral geochronometers such as apatite, baddeleyite, monazite, xenotime and zircon are increasingly being recognized for their ability to preserve diagnostic microstructural evidence of hypervelocity-impact processes. To date, little is known about the response of titanite to shock metamorphism, even though it is a widespread accessory phase and a U–Pb geochronometer. Here we report two new mechanical twin modes in titanite within shocked granitoid from the Chicxulub impact structure, Mexico. Titanite grains in the newly acquired core from the International Ocean Discovery Program Hole M0077A preserve multiple sets of polysynthetic twins, most commonly with composition planes (K1) = ~ { 1 ¯ 11 } , and shear direction (η1) = , and less commonly with the mode K1 = {130}, η1 = ~ . In some grains, {130} deformation bands have formed concurrently with the deformation twins, indicating dislocation slip with Burgers vector b = can be active during impact metamorphism. Titanite twins in the modes described here have not been reported from endogenically deformed rocks; we, therefore, propose this newly identified twin form as a result of shock deformation. Formation conditions of the twins have not been experimentally calibrated, and are here empirically constrained by the presence of planar deformation features in quartz (12 ± 5 and ~ 17 ± 5 GPa) and the absence of shock twins in zircon (< 20 GPa). While the lower threshold of titanite twin formation remains poorly constrained, identification of these twins highlight the utility of titanite as a shock indicator over the pressure range between 12 and 17 GPa. Given the challenges to find diagnostic indicators of shock metamorphism to identify both ancient and recent impact evidence on Earth, microstructural analysis of titanite is here demonstrated to provide a new tool for recognizing impact deformation in rocks where other impact evidence may be erased, altered, or did not manifest due to generally low (< 20 GPa) shock pressure

Peering inside the peak ring of the Chicxulub Impact Crater-its nature and formation mechanism

The IODP-ICDP Expedition 364 drilled into the Chicxulub crater, peering inside its well-preserved peak ring. The borehole penetrated a sequence of post-impact carbonates and a unit of suevites and clast-poor impact melt rock at the top of the peak ring. Beneath this sequence, basement rocks cut by pre-impact and impact dykes, with breccias and melt, were encountered at shallow depths. The basement rocks are fractured, shocked and uplifted, consistent with dynamic collapse, uplift and long-distance transport of weakened material during collapse of the transient cavity and final crater formation