Titanium local coordination environments in Cretaceous–Paleogene and Devonian–Carboniferous boundary sediments as a possible marker for large meteorite impact

Abstract

The local coordination environments of Ti in Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) from Stevns Klint and Devonian–Carboniferous (D–C) boundary from western part of Cat Co Beach on Cat Ba Island sediments are studied by K-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) in order to provide local atomic information by X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) and coordination environments by extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS). Ti K-edge XAFS spectra in bulk part of K–Pg and D–C boundary sediments are compared with those of reference materials such as TiO2 (rutile, anatase and brookite polymorph), CaTiO3, MgTiO3, SrTiO3, PbTiO3, moldavite-brownish, moldavite-green, suevite from Ries crater, impactite, obsidian and Kilauea volcanic glass. The shapes of XANES and EXAFS spectra in K–Pg sediments are similar to those in suevite. Suevite was formed under meteorite impact and its glass component was formed under high temperature and high pressure. Similarities of XANES and EXAFS between K–Pg sediments and suevite indicate that formation process of K–Pg sediments is related to a meteorite impact event. On the other hand, the shape of XANES spectrum in D–C sediments is similar to those in anatase and obsidian. However, the shape of EXAFS spectra in D–C sediments is similar to those in obsidian, rather than anatase. Coordination environments of Ti in D–C sediments suggest that the original glass-like local environments were changed to anatase-like local environments by devitrification. This leads to the conclusion that the analysis of the atomic coordination environments of Ti in boundary sediments can in principle be used as a marker of large meteorite impact, though this Ti local environmental information is actually lost due to the devitrification phenomenon to anatase by quenching process or long-time diagenesis. This may be compensated by the XAFS analysis of Zr because local coordination environments of Zr in same analytical point of K–Pg sediments were not affected by diagenesis (Tobase et al., J Miner Petrol Sci 110:88–91, 2015a).