Sanidine spherules at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary indicate a large impact event

Details Sanidine spherules at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary indicate a large impact event Sanidine spherules at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary indicate a large impact event

Jul 1981

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1981natur.292...47s&link_type=abstract

Nature, Volume 292, Issue 5818, pp. 47-49 (1981).

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71

Scientific paper

The hypothesis that a catastrophic impact of an extraterrestrial body caused the terminal Cretaceous mass extinctions of dinosaurs, planktonic foraminfera and other species is now accepted as respectable following the discovery of a worldwide iridium enrichment in the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary clay1-5. In the basal lamina of the K-T boundary clay of Caravaca (Spain)7 numerous spherules were discovered composed of finely crystallized, almost pure K-feldspar in the structural state of high sanidine. It is concluded here that these spherules solidified from a melt and were probably derived from the impacting body. This poses problems as high K-values are not reported from bulk analyses of meteorites6. The K-feldspar phenocrysts reported in some iron meteorites23 suggest the body may have been a metal-sulphide-silicate planetesimal. A cometary body is suggested as an alternative.

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