The fate of sandstone during impact cratering: shock compaction, cataclastic flow, and granular fluidization

Abstract

Impact of solid bodies is the most fundamental of all processes that have taken place on the terrestrial planets in our Solar system (Shoemaker 1977). On Earth, impact cratering was the dominant geologic process during the period of the early heavy bombardment until 3.8Ga. A constant asteroid impact flux exists since that time. Although deformation of the crust by meteorite impacts is now subordinate with respect to tectonics, it represents an important, but often underestimated fraction of the bulk crustal deformation. Short-term deformation during hypervelocity impact events differs in many respects from standard tectonics: Unique conditions exist at pressures above the so-called Hugoniot elastic limit (HEL) of a particular mineral or rock. This state of compression is reached in a shock wave that propagates from the point of impact. Shock waves travel at supersonic velocity, heat and irreversibly deform the rock, and cause a residual motion of the material they have passed, which ultimately leads to the formation of parabolically shaped crater cavity of much larger extent than the projectile diameter. At pressure above the HEL minerals are subjected to shock metamorphism...