ABSTRACT A combined petrographic and chemical study of ejecta particles from the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary sequence of El Guayal, Tabasco, Mexico (520 km SW of Chicxulub crater), was carried out to assess their formation conditions and genetic relation during the impact process. The reaction of silicate ejecta particles with hot volatiles during atmospheric transport may have induced alteration processes, e.g., silicification and cementation, observed in the ejecta deposits. The various microstructures of calcite ejecta particles are interpreted to reflect different thermal histories at postshock conditions. Spherulitic calcite particles may represent carbonate melts that were quenched during ejection. A recrystallized microstructure may indicate short, intense thermal stress. Various aggregates document particle-particle interactions and intermixing of components from lower silicate and upper sedimentary target lithologies. Aggregates of recrystallized calcite with silicate melt indicate the consolidation of a hot suevitic component with sediments at ≳750 °C. Accretionary lapilli formed in a turbulent, steam-condensing environment at ~100 °C by aggregation of solid, ash-sized particles. Concentric zones with smaller grain sizes of accreted particles indicate a recurring exchange with a hotter environment. Our results suggest that during partial ejecta plume collapse, hot silicate components were mixed with the fine fraction of local surface-derived sediments, the latter of which were displaced by the preceding ejecta curtain. These processes sustained a hot, gas-driven, lateral basal transport that was accompanied by a turbulent plume at a higher level. The exothermic back-reaction of CaO from decomposed carbonates and sulfates with CO 2 to form CaCO 3 may have been responsible for a prolonged release of thermal energy at a late stage of plume evolution.

The Eyreville B drill core in the inner annular moat of the 85-km-diameter Ches-apeake Bay impact structure recovered the first coherent impact melt volumes from within the crater as two bodies, 1 and 5.5 m thick. This study focuses on the petrogenesis of these well-preserved rocks. Mixing calculations reveal that the chemical composition of these melts can be modeled as a hybrid of ~40% sedimentary target and ~60% crystalline basement component. The melt rocks contain abundant lithic and mineral clasts that display all stages of shock metamorphism. Zircon clasts record the cooling of the melt from temperatures above 1700 °C to below 1200 °C within the first minutes after formation. Glassy melt with a peraluminous, rhyolitic composition that contains ~5 wt% water is preserved. This melt records a crystallization sequence of aluminum-rich orthopyroxene and hercynitic spinel, followed by plagioclase, titano-magnetite and cordierite, and late sanidine. Spherulitic aluminosilicate-SiO 2 -cordierite aggregates that are comparable to buchites at temperatures below ~1465 °C complement this assemblage. Lack of hyaloclastic fragmentation suggests dry emplacement conditions. Complete cooling by conductive heat transfer took ~7 weeks and ~4 years for the 1-m- and the 5.5-m-thick melt bodies, respectively. Alteration stages below ~100 °C produced smectite, phillipsite, chalcedony, and a rare zeolite phase that is tentatively identified as terranovaite.