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Why is Redstone Arsenal, Alabama not Yellowstone? Yesterday I discovered "meteor deteriorate." Just outside the crater wall on the AL/TN border.  The iron from the meteor is diluted more and becomes particle soluble and is mixed with impacted material. The top specimen is shocked limestone with a weak mix of diluted rubble splatter. It is sitting on a weak mix of unconsolidated impact material with a hyper-velocity quartz thin plane insertion! Somehow this weak mix was still close enough to receive a hyper-velocity blast. Clearly there are successive stages occurring quickly. Overall the iron spray just becomes the red color to the soil in Madison county, AL.

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Now let's take a look at it closer. 

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The same thing is occurring in the picture below. Also thin plane quartz insertion with a weak  mix of meteor and more impacted material in the mix. Also I  noted elongated shapes as deterioration detritus.  

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These loosely consolidated elongated shapes are still in the process of falling apart after all this time and being in a plowed cotton field alluvial Elk River plane. 

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Here is one below actually falling apart. Notice how the iron binder has leached out into the soil. 

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You find weak unconsolidated balls of just the weak iron mix binder leaching away and you can crumble them in your hand. 

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Below is the same kind of stuff five miles inside the SW crater. It is so shock metamorphic it only loses some iron on surface over time. 
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I also found new mineral oxide splatter effect with fading and edge lines. 

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A few of the first specimens I encountered. They are soft and even eroding on surfaces. 

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Same location this specimen below has a sweeping carved exterior and appears to have been "cooked" a bit with exterior wrinkling. Is this the effect at this distance or was it blasted here? Tiny bits of iron splatter too. Ft. Payne chert.
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The specimen below is from the north crater floor along Richland Creek and HW 31. It is a conglomeration melted together and overshocked. I broke it apart with my hands. It was fused well inside but beyond boiling point of materials! That would be in the range of 3,000 + degrees F.  
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Same rock shown below with the exterior rubble composite to interior over shocked powder composition. High shock can have a bleaching effect. 
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Soft rock impactites are made by the vapor mist and crumble easy. 
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This specimen posted for identification is granite like but softer. It is composed of a particle storm and is partially formed into connected constellations. I think it is a vapor umbrella impactite cusp. Less shock but in the vapor cloud zone. 
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So here is the iron from the Frankewing, TN Impact hitting the Highland Rim in Wayne County, TN. It falls into a pebble shore and becomes a binding matrix. 

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MA Bay Impact, impact material not well compressed. The forensics. First let's note that in situ this is sitting on top as an independent bolder mass. A somewhat recent geological feature. The composition is bits and pieces conglomerate. The matrix binder is not holding and by the look of it could be calcium bentonite ash. I have encountered this before at the edge of the Howell, TN Impact Structure at the border of TN and AL. Rocks that would crumble. As this was an edge effect, I presume it was not subject to the higher pressures. The recent geological surveys offshore MA show gravel like this on the bottom. Take a look at the attached map of the offshore area. Aug. 26, 2024. 
 

New England Rock Hounds

Jamie Doris  ·   · 

I was on Cape Ann (MA) today and came across several formations like this. It’s almost like they’re actively crumbling. What causes this? Sorry if this has been covered before. I try to pay attention to the posts.

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