tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post123069679217885858..comments2024-03-26T01:31:40.215-04:00Comments on Hudson Valley Geologist: Panther Mountain impact structureStevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-4029752142657780312013-05-19T15:30:23.389-04:002013-05-19T15:30:23.389-04:00Shocked Qtz grains are pretty diagnostic for meteo...Shocked Qtz grains are pretty diagnostic for meteorite impact AFAIK, but the iron-rich spherules COULD be welding/ grinding debris from the rig's mud system. Quantifying the amounts of shocked Qtz and iron spherules against time/ operations in the drilling programme would probably help. An influx of spherules into the samples after a comment "repairs on mud pits" in the rig reports would be ... suspicious. Or you might be able to distinguish artificial spherules from natural ones.<br />(I had a mudlogger under my supervision spot and question these artificial spherules once, because he'd not seen them before ; it happens.)<br />Plotting (coarsely) the shocked Qtz and spherule abundance against lagged depth for the sample may reveal abundance in some intervals of the well, scarcity in others. If that doesn't correlate with inferred history of infill of the structure and source of sediments (still excavting ejecta?), then there's some explaining to do.<br />I've never drilled a (putative) impact crater yet, in approaching 200 wells. But that's a "yet" ; I volunteered for work on the claimed "Silverpit" structure in the UK, before it's identification was challenged as tectonic instead of astrobleme. A. Karley FGS, BSchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07281718336022077294noreply@blogger.com