Planetary Mineralogy
The school associated with this volume was inspired by the recent advances in our understanding of the nature and evolution of our Solar System that have come from the missions to study and sample asteroids and comets, and the very successful Mars orbiters and landers. At the same time our horizons have expanded greatly with the discovery of extrasolar protoplanetary disks, planets and planetary systems by space telescopes. The continued success of such telescopic and robotic exploration requires a supply of highly skilled people and so one of the goals of the Glasgow school was to help build a community of early-career planetary scientists and space engineers.
Shocked rocks: impacts from the laboratory to the Solar System
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Published:January 01, 2015
Abstract
Impacts from space leave dramatic craters on planetary surfaces. Alterations also occur at the microscopic scale in the rocks of the crater itself due to the extreme shock pressures and elevated temperatures associated with these high-speed impact events. This chapter discusses these metamorphic impact features and explains how they arise. The chapter begins with some of the theoretical background to shock physics and why high-speed impacts (which lead to shocks) are commonplace in the Solar System. It then describes laboratory methods of reproducing shock events before describing the consequences of shocks on rock samples and how these can be used to subsequently gauge the peak shock pressure to which a sample was subjected.
- coesite
- diamond
- experimental studies
- framework silicates
- geologic barometry
- high pressure
- impact craters
- impact features
- impactites
- impacts
- laboratory studies
- mechanics
- melting
- metamorphic rocks
- metamorphism
- microdiamond
- native elements
- numerical analysis
- planets
- polymorphism
- pressure
- shock metamorphism
- shock waves
- silica minerals
- silicates
- solar system
- Huguniot equations