A Diversity of Temperature and Pressure Conditions Recorded by Zircon within Suevite from Ries Crater, Germany

The temperature and pressure conditions experienced by rocks during an impact event can be constrained using petrologic and microstructural analysis and is crucial to providing ground truth to the impact cratering process. Suevite is a polymict, impact melt-bearing breccia, specific to Ries crater in Germany. There are competing models for suevite formation and emplacement, such as clastic flows pushed out of the crater rim or ejecta plume fallback. Knowledge of the temperature and pressure pathways recorded by grains within the suevite can help distinguish between these and other models. The accessory phase zircon (ZrSiO4) and its high-pressure polymorph reidite are particularly useful in such circumstances as they are highly refractory minerals that can record the high-temperature and/or high-pressure conditions of an impact event. Here we present evidence for a wide array of temperature and pressure conditions recorded in zircon grains within a single thin section of suevite. Zircons in this study range from unshocked to highly shocked (>53 GPa), and record temperatures more than 1673 °C. These findings confirm previous studies concluding that suevites contain material exposed to very diverse pressure and temperature conditions during initial shock compression and excavation but do not, as a whole, experience extreme temperatures (>1673 °C) or pressures (>30 GPa).