Siderophile-rich particles in the melt rocks at the E. Clearwater impact structure, Quebec: Their characteristics and relationship to the impacting body

Abstract

The composition of the sampled melt rocks at the 22 km diameter E. Clearwater impact structure indicates the presence of ∼8% C-1 material. The meteoritic component is fractionated with refractory siderophiles, up to 30 times C-1 abundances, concentrated in ten to hundred micron-sized, magnetic particles. These particles consist of the Ni-sulphide, millerite, and what is assumed to be a mixture of refractory silicates and magnetite with grain sizes of <1 μm. The larger particles have a core-rim structure with millerite and occasionally very minor galena and possibly pentlandite in the core. An origin as a combination of altered meteoritic metal and condensed meteoritic silicate is favored for the origin of the siderophile-rich particles. If 8% meteoritic material is taken as the average meteoritic contamination in the melt, then the E. Clearwater projectile may have impacted with a velocity of 17 km s−1. Peak shock pressures would have been of the order of 300 GPa, sufficient to vaporize the silicate component but only melt the metal component of the projectile. As the meteoritic material was being driven down into vaporized/ melted target rocks during the initial stages of impact, the melted Fe, Ni metal underwent oxidation, Fe was removed, and meteoritic silicate material recondensed on the cooler, essentially Ni metal. As cavity excavation proceeded, these Ni metal, silicate-oxide particles were incorporated in the melt, their refractory nature prevented thermal digestion and sulphur in the melt reacted with the metal to produce millerite on final equilibration. If this hypothesis is correct, it suggests that the E. Clearwater projectile was a C-2 or C-3 chondrite, both of which are compatible with the trace element composition of the melt rocks. Clearwater Lake is a twin impact structure formed by an asteroid pair. It is still not clear, however, what type of projectile formed the 32 km diameter western structure, where the surface melt rocks contain no identifiable meteoritic signature.