Meteorite Impact! (Paperback)

PART I CHAPTER 1 T E — , , . . . . . . . . . 15 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Geological change — the answers within, and without. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Man on the Moon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Back to the beginning — from the Big Bang to early Earth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Impact — the ubiquitous process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 The oldest rocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Time to cool — birth of the Kaapvaal continent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Old crust in the Vredefort Dome. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Rifting, oceans, volcanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Mountains, fire and ice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 The unique Bushveld magmatic event. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 CHAPTER 2 C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Extinction or survival — our restless Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Meteorite-impact catastrophes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Normal (background) versus mass extinctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 A brief look at the impact record in the Solar System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 What are the projectiles capable of causing an impact catastrophe?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 What is an impact crater? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 How can we identify impact structures? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Shock metamorphism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 CHAPTER 3 T A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Tswaing meteorite crater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Does Tswaing have a twin? (Kalkkop Crater, Eastern Cape Province) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 South Africa’ s other Giant Impact Morokweng impact structure, — North West Province . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Our southern African neighbours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Testimony of earliest impact catastrophe — Barberton and the Northern Cape Province . . 113 Traces of catastrophe in the Karoo?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 6 CHAPTER 4 V : T W . . . 117 The Vredefort Structure revealed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Getting to know the giant: By road through the Vredefort Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Traversing the outer parts of the Vredefort Dome (Fochville to Parys) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 5 The geology of the Vredefort Dome. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Wolf Uwe Reimold is Professor of Mineralogy and Petrography at the Museum fur Natur-kunde-Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Research in Berlin, Germany. From 1984 till 2005 he was on the staff of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, where he established and led the Impact Createring Research Group. For his multidisciplinary research on many impact structures throughout the world, and especially on the Vredefort impact structure, he was honoured in 2009 by the Meteoritical Society with the Barringer Medal Award. Besides meteorite impact, Uwe has carried out research on ore deposits and Ethiopian geology, and he has been a keen promoter of geoconservation.
Roger Gibson is Professor of Structural Geology and Metamorphic Petrology and Head of the School of Geosciences at the University of the Witwatersrand. He attended the University of Natal where he completed a B.Sc. (Honours) in Geology in 1984, and Cambridge University (England) where he completed a PhD in 1989. A recipient of several awards, including the Jubilee Medal of the Geological Society of South Africa and the Wits University Vice-Chancellor's Young Researcher and Team Teaching Awards, Roger is also active in educational outreach and in the development of geotourism in the Vredefort Dome World Heritage Site.