New paper for Bastien Soens on microtektites from East Antarctica

14/02/2021 - 22:15

A new paper, as part of the PhD thesis of Bastien Soens is published in Geoscience Frontiers. In this paper Bastien characterizes the composition of microtektites found in the Sør Rondane Mountains of East Antartica and shows that they are part of the 790 ka year old Australisian strewnfield, which must be expanded significantly compared to previous studies in a southwest direction. Clearly this most recent tektite forming event distributed ejecta over a much broader surface than previously thought. Read the paper here

Stereomicrograph images of the microtektites. All particles display a typical pale yellowcolor and spherical shape, except for a single dumbbell-shape particle.

This map shows the current extension of the microtektites, the discovery in the Sør Rondane mountains of Antarctica significantly expands the size of the strewnfield.