Research on geology, geophysics, and petrology of impact structures (meteorite impact craters)
6th IMPACT workshop Granada

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6th IMPACT workshop Granada (Spain)

The 6th IMPACT workshop on "Impact Markers in the Stratigraphic Record" was held in Granada from May 19 to May 25, 2001. Quite a few papers covering the complete field of impact research were presented as oral and poster contributions. Four posters by F. Anguita, F. Claudin, K. Ernstson, T. Ernstson, M.Hiltl, K. Hradil, M. Rampino, and U. Schüssler in varying co-authorships were applied to the Spanish Azuara and Rubielos de la Cérida impact structures. Both these posters and the corresponding abstracts are shown in the sub-menus Posters and Abstracts.

The this year's fieldtrip, regularly combined with the IMPACT workshops, was conducted to the Caravaca and Agost K/T boundaries. After some discussions with and within the organization committee, an informal fieldtrip to the Azuara impact structure (taken out of the official program) was offered to the workshop participants already registered. This reflects the yet continuous quarrelling about this impact having left rational scientific ground for a long time and in many ways.

The fieldtrip took place on May 17/18, and the complete fieldtrip guide can be studied in the sub-menu Fieldguide.

While discussions with participants from Russia, the USA, Sweden and Austria concentrated on impact features in the outcrops ("impact markers in the stratigraphic record"), geologists from the Zaragoza university solely tried to defend their ideas about the regional geology in the area under consideration and their models where there is no place for a Tertiary impact. This especially concerns STOP 1 (basal breccia), STOP 3 (Pelarda Fm. ejecta), STOP 4 (breccia dikes), and STOP 5 (megabreccia), and they didn't hold back when it came to confusing people. For example, on discussing the suevite-like basal breccia at Cucalón (STOP 1), the Zaragoza geologists vehemently argued against an Eocene/Oligocene impact because of dated Miocene below the basal breccia. This indeed would have been puzzling. In fact, however, they later confessed that the Miocene sediments were dated near Nombrevilla, some 15 km away from Cucalón, and in Nombrevilla, there is no basal breccia exposed!

This and similar incidents during the field trip finally led to a new escalation in the geologic debate on the Azuara impact. As far as the present writer (K.E.) was involved in that escalation, he deeply regrets his mistake, specially his impulsive reactions. Personal quarrels have seldom made progress with science. Therefore, this website will as well in future present results on an unemotional, matter-of-fact basis. This will hold true also for discussing non-impact models favored by, e.g., Zaragoza geologists.


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last modified at: 2002-06-18