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The Impact Record of Southwest Gondwana

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Geology of Southwest Gondwana

Part of the book series: Regional Geology Reviews ((RGR))

Abstract

Impact cratering has been, and still is, a planetary process of utmost importance. Here, the limited impact record for Southwest Gondwana, amended by the record of Australia and the only two impact structures known from India in East Gondwana, is examined. Care is taken to distinguish between known impact events during the run-up to the completion of Gondwana—that is, prior to 1000 Ma—and in the interval 1000–500 Ma, the subsequent Pangea and Pangea-break-up phase till about 135 Ma, and in the post-135 Ma record. The overall record is simply too limited to allow a distinct evaluation of periods of possibly enhanced impact flux that, in turn, might have affected paleoenvironmental or even biological evolution. It stands to reason that at least a major part of the SW Gondwanan impact record was obliterated during the rifting stages related to the post-500 Ma break-up phase, but equally it cannot be excluded that large impact structures (or remnants of them) may still be discovered in future on the shields and in the orogenic belts/basins of Africa and South America. Finally, the SW Gondwanan impact record may be further expanded through careful observation aiming at identification of impact ejecta deposits, such as spherule layer beds, or through the discovery of shock metamorphosed zircon or monazite (derived from eroded impact structures) in the sedimentary records and the isotopic dating of these ancient impact-witness grains.

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Acknowledgements

This manuscript was prepared while WUR was on sabbatical at the University of Brasília. He wishes to thank the Institute of Geosciences there for their hospitality and support. His Brazilian research is also supported by an Innovationsfond grant from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin to P. Zaag and WUR. APC acknowledges his CNPq research grant#305911/2013-9. Manfred Gottwald and the Deutsches Institut für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) kindly provided permission to publish the TanDEM-X images in Fig. 24.2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Museum für Naturkunde—Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Invalidenstrasse 43, 10115, Berlin, Germany

    Wolf Uwe Reimold

  2. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter Den Linden 6, 10099, Berlin, Germany

    Wolf Uwe Reimold

  3. Geochronology Laboratory, University of Brasília, Brasília, Brazil

    Wolf Uwe Reimold & Natalia Hauser

  4. Geosciences Institute, State University of Campinas, 6152, 13085-970, Campinas, SP, Brazil

    Alvaro P. Crósta

Authors
  1. Wolf Uwe Reimold
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  2. Natalia Hauser
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  3. Alvaro P. Crósta
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Correspondence to Wolf Uwe Reimold .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. GZG—Structural Geology and Geodynamics University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Siegfried Siegesmund

  2. Geosciences Institute, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Miguel A. S. Basei

  3. Departamento de Geodinámica Interna, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Pedro Oyhantçabal

  4. GZG—Structural Geology and Geodynamics University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Sebastian Oriolo

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Reimold, W.U., Hauser, N., Crósta, A.P. (2018). The Impact Record of Southwest Gondwana. In: Siegesmund, S., Basei, M., Oyhantçabal, P., Oriolo, S. (eds) Geology of Southwest Gondwana. Regional Geology Reviews. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68920-3_24

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