• A one-billion-year-old Scottish meteorite impact

    From erik simpson@eastside.erik@gmail.com to sci.bio.paleontology on Tue Apr 29 08:51:29 2025
    From Newsgroup: sci.bio.paleontology

    https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/doi/10.1130/G53121.1/653703/A-one-billion-year-old-Scottish-meteorite-impact

    The Stoer Group in northwest Scotland is one of the oldest
    well-preserved sedimentary successions in Europe and includes the Stac
    Fada Member, an impact ejecta deposit. Here we report U-Pb analyses on
    shocked zircon grains that yield an age of 990 -# 22 Ma, consistent with
    an early Tonian Pb-loss event that affected the Stac Fada Member but not
    its bounding strata. We interpret these data to record the timing of
    impact, which occurred some 200 m.y. after the previously determined
    1177 Ma alkali feldspar 40Ar/39Ar age. The alkali feldspar we find
    within the Stac Fada Member yields Rb-Sr ages of ca. 1735 Ma and 1675
    Ma, consistent with a detrital provenance from Paleoproterozoic
    granites. Our new age constrains the Stoer Group to the early Tonian and suggests a new Neoproterozoic plate tectonic context for these rocks.
    These data revise the age of some of the oldest known nonmarine
    microfossils in the UK and their role for timing the eukaryotic
    colonization of land.

    The published link has a PDF download to the full article.
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