Meteor Marbled Limestone & Metamorphic Marling
In Goodspeed's History of TN marble was reported in Lincoln County. It is not true marble and presents in many types. It is a shock caused metamorphic limestone.
This stuff covers four counties so it can vary a lot. The specimen below is de-laminating along the mineral layers.
Basically the iron and components of the explosion penetrated into the crater floor! It has been quarried for years as construction material. In The Stratigraphy of the Central Basin of Tennessee R. S. Bassler writes concerning the Silurian System strata P. 127 "... to the marble quarries near Kelso, Lincoln County, ..." It is interesting how geologists have never questioned why a metamorphic rock, marble is in the sedimentary strata.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble
https://geology.com/rocks/marble.shtml
Front of the blast between Howell and Petersburg, TN shock marble specimen.
Breccia from Howell, TN which is a transition shock effect that lines craters like rubble. It has been shocked to a metamorphic crystal structure but not as highly metamorphic as marble.
Geo-metry rock. Quarried in Giles or Lincoln County high grade metamorphic limestone. https://rogersgroupincint.com/
Now this one below from Romania is a whole new category of marbling. The quartz is a string insertion at hyper velocity into a simi-liquid shocked plasma. You can read more about this effect at:
https://www.hillbillyu.com/thin-plane-insertion
Although the overall bolder presents as sedimentary the internal structure is somewhat marble like. The inclusion must have been a different material and shock metamorphic change accentuates that. The specimen below was found at Lake Logan in SE Giles County, TN.
Specimens below are from HW 31 and Richland creek in Marshal County crater floor. This would be a high shock energy to make such a melt flow. To melt sand like that would be in excess of 3,000 degrees and on the scale shown on the right would be a strongly shocked condition.
Specimens below are from same location as above but with meteor metals transferred in the shock particle wave, could be copper.
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S1: completely unshocked (up to 5 GPa)
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S2: very weakly shocked (5-10 GPa); uneven darkening of olivine as seen under polarized light; planar and irregular fractures (breaks in other than a natural cleavage plane.)
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S3: weakly shocked (15-20 GPa); weak fractures in olivine seen under polarized light; dark shock veins and some melt pockets
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S4: moderately shocked; (30-35 GPa); weak planar fracturing of olivine under polarized light; some pockets of melted material, dark interconnected shock veins
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S5: strongly shocked (45-55 GPa); very strong planar fracturing and deformation features in olivine; alteration of plagioclase into maskelynite; formation of dark melt veins
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S6: very strongly shocked (75-90 GPa); olivine recrystallizes, with local alteration to a mineral called ringwoodite and shock melting of plagioclase to a glass
Greater shock pressures will melt the rock, producing what is referred to as an "impact melt". These are seldom found on Earth, so they are very much sought after by collectors.
Impact melt breccia bolder at Vredefort Crater in South Africa. Interesting that in South Africa they can identify a meteor marbling effect and in Tennessee remain oblivious.
This is another variant of meteor marbling. It is a mixed Bentonite ash clay and iron with the limestone turbulence 50 miles west of the crater center near Iron City, TN.
Pictures above are from Hormuz Island, Iran. It is thought to be of volcanic origin and dating back to Cambrian sequence. Notice pictures D and E are marbled iron oxide. Iron melts at 2,000 degrees F and lava is typically less than 2,000 degrees.
Particle Forms >
Particle Forms >
Drew Pettingill collected this specimen in Delaware. It is an impactite from the Chesapake Bay Impact Structure. The iron is distributed in a variant of black iron oxide Fe3O4. The impact shock tends to turn the limestone white. This specimen also contains the final blast sequence of the shock particle storm. These particles are in resonate form making forms. These are discussed in detail at: https://www.hillbillyu.com/constellationing
Cores from the impact structure show the marbling effect as it varies with distance and are shown below.
Shock Particle Storm Inclusion
Strange impactite collected by Carol Hughes of Dickson, TN. It has surface iron on the other side and a geode type form which you can see a little of in lower left.
Meteor Marbled Stone in the San Gabriel Mountains which is a crater wall from the Los Angles Basin Impact that broke the earth's crust enough that it is in an earthquake resolving mode. This impact was recent, a post carbon period impact and has oil pockets under pressure in the voids of the crater construction.
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Specimen below is from Lake Logan, TN a quarried rock used in the lower spillway.
This marbling fascinates me because it is a Turing Pattern.
This is ash and limestone after a large earth impact a type of "meteor marbling." Notice the small red impact sphere near the top.
Hannah Jo Moody · August 2 at 6:11 PM ·
Found on a beach in Maine… Intrigued to know what it is and it’s purpose!
Native Americans liked to find artistic expression of their tools. Notice it has an unusual cleavage that was less glass like as it has a complex structure.
The Maine Crater shown above. It shaped the coastline.
Impact marbling rejection pattern. Is an impact crater that covers most of MO. This shock melt strata is resolving a not mix of the Fe3O4 from the impacting bolide. As a phenomena these patterns are something Alan Turning described in 1952. You can see many core samples from the Chesapeake Bay Crater and the mixing problem of the black iron oxide. Impact is a liquid event as unloading that much energy makes the crater bowl a liquid.
Mike Eldredge
Any guesses on what this is? Mississippian, Meramecian. Salem LS near the contact with the Warsaw shale, SE Missouri
The Big MO Crater is partially distorted by the Big Gulf Crater that pushed up so much material up the lowlands so that makes Big MO older than the larger Gulf Crater.
The Kentucky part of Big MO is covered by the sediment push of the Gulf Crater but retains the crater arc.
Meteor marbling - Weathering rounded over a long period. This nodule was once part of the bedrock somewhere hence the grey former limestone now shock metamorphic. The milky quartz hard crypto crystalline is former sand from the impacting surface. They are mixed as a blast plasma and ejected great distances as impactites. You have tiny red surface inclusions still remaining, these are late arriving bits from the meteor as impact is a sequence explosion event for Type 3 impacts the exploding type most familiar.
strange find I.D., geology, archaeology, paleontology, Native Artifacts
Heidi Mollner ·· Oct. 10, 2022
Check this out. I found this today. What do you think it is? I see a petroglyph of a bird on one side and what looks to be images of men and animals on the other but those are more distorted.
Meteor marbling with dendritic constellationing clouds & fractal constellationing. - The impact particle storm has mixed with the former native limestone from the Big MO Impact. A dendritic alignment is a representation of energy still present. The fractal presentation show direction from right to left which is how this shock metamorphic was made. Fractals will branch away from the direction of the energy. You can also see iron oxide in red which is blast fragments of the impacting bolide which was quite large around 10 miles in diameter. As it was the last geological event that could put it as late as the Devonian even Mississippian/Carboniferous.
Oct. 10, 2022
strange find I.D., geology, archaeology, paleontology, Native Artifacts
Pam Slattery · ·
Hello! I am a new collector and trying to find my way in this world of rock hounding.
We did some excavating in our back yard this summer and I found this. I thought petrified wood, but I was told in another group, not petrified wood. I'm looking to see if any of you might know. We live in Polk County, MO, that's in southwestern Missouri. Thanks!
Typical dendritic
Fractal type with pure direction.
Impactite nodule, Big Mo Crater. Fluidized orogeny. Fe3O4 black iron oxide marbling in chert silica matrix. Aug. 31, 2023.
Carla Dibbert · ·
Does anyone know what this rock might be? Found in my basement. The black lines are an integral part of the rock, not raised, don’t chip out, go all the way through.
Impact made meteor marbling. Sept. 24, 2023.
Joelle Pollock
Zebra Dolomite at The Vice President in Yoho National Park, Yoho Valley Field, BC , Canada. Trail: The Iceline.
Meteor marbling, Fe3O4SiO2 from the central TX impact. Sept. 27, 2023.
Rockhounding For Beginners
Dawn Foreman · ·
Found this on a property we purchased in Athens Tx. I’m loving the deep red and black. Any idea what it may be? I don’t usually see these deep colors in northeast Texas unless it’s iron but this feels a bit waxy/smooth- not rough like iron. Of course it could have come from a different location….
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Impact meteor marbling. The iron is in a shock circle configuration. Any number of minerals can be blasted out and infused from the impacting bolide and often are hard because of the high energy and silica present. Likely from the big Michigan Impact. It is a shock metamorphic fast form. Oct. 29,2023.
John Karsen
Any ideas? One guy said breccia...found in michigan port huron. Ignore the rust spot
Impact meteor marbling as quarry cross section. Oct. 30, 2023.
Dome Impact Tours
Eujin Pei from London visited the Vredefort Dome impact crater on the 28th October 2023 and did a tour in part of the crater with Dome Impact Tours. Because Eujin was very much interested in the Parys granite quarries in the Kopjeskraal area , some of the quarries were included during the tour. All of the quarries showed good examples of Pseudotachylitic breccia's , an granite impact generated melt rock , from relatively small veins (Photo 1) at the Pedretti quarry , to big walls (Photo 2) at the Leeukop quarry. Mining of Parys granite at the Leeukop quarry , or Marlin mine , continued for 11 years until it was closed in 1998 (Photo 3). Eujin even had to opportunity to meet up again with Christo Meyer at the Salvamento granite quarry (Photo 4) , with whom he did a previous tour in the site , about 10 years ago.
His comments on the tour with Dome Impact Tours were as follows : " Amazing tour , professionally presented , very informative and spoke about history and geological features at the locations. Very helpful and patient. A +++ tour guide. "
Meteor Marbling May 19, 2024
James Via
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Dolmen de Kerran, Saint Philibert France 2019
James Via Photography
— with Marie Via.