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Project

Petrography and geochemistry of impactites and proximal ejecta deposits in Southern Mexico within the framework of the 2012-2013 IODP/ICDP Chicxulub crater drilling (FWOTM591)

The ~200km sized Chicxulub crater (Yucatan, Mexico) is the best-preserved complex crater on Earth. The collision occurred on a shallow-water carbonate platform 65Ma ago. The primary goal of this PhD project is to advance the current understanding of the Chicxulub cratering process and the distribution of proximal ejecta deposits around the Gulf of Mexico region. The petrography and geochemistry of selected drill core samples (PEMEX, ICDP, UNAM, IODP) within the crater will be studied in details. This study also involves documenting the characteristics of the proximal ejecta at several locations outside the crater, extending from the crater rim to the periphery of the Gulf of Mexico (Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Chiapas). Additional information will come from studying seismic data from the offshore part of the crater and linking them to the reconstructed stratigraphy of the ICDP core Yaxcopoil 1. This PhD project clearly falls within the joint IODP/ICDP drilling of the Chicxlub crater scheduled for 2012, the major accent will be on the petrographic and geochemical study of the recovered cores located on the offshore line Chicx-A1, and the comparison of this data with the existing wells (ICDP Yax-1, C-1 Y6, UNAM) and the proximal ejecta via outcrop studies. The research is fully incorporated within the large-scale international effort to drill the Chicxulub crater byIODP/ICDP.
Date:1 Oct 2011 →  30 Sep 2015
Keywords:Crater, Geology, Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, Planetary science
Disciplines:Mathematical sciences and statistics, History and archaeology, Biological sciences, Earth sciences, Chemical sciences