Peak-ring magnetism: Rock and mineral magnetic properties of the Chicxulub impact crater

Abstract

The Chicxulub impact event at ca. 66 Ma left in its wake the only complex crater on Earth with a preserved peak ring, characterized by a well-developed magnetic anomaly low. To date, little is known about its magnetic properties. The joint Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) and International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) Expedition 364 drill core M0077A revealed that the peak ring consists of uplifted and strongly deformed granitoid basement rocks overlain by a 130-m-thick impact melt and suevite layer. Pre- and postimpact hydrothermal systems affected this basement with maximum temperatures up to 450 °C. We used microscopy, mineral chemistry, temperature-dependent magnetic susceptibility, and hysteresis properties to characterize the magnetic mineralogy of pre-, syn-, and postimpact rocks. Compared to its amount of pure, stoichiometric shocked magnetite, the granitoid basement shows low magnetic susceptibility, which is in line with earlier experimental studies indicating that shock reduces magnetic susceptibility. Cation-substituted magnetite with varying compositions in the melt rocks carries a higher induced and remanent magnetization compared to the basement. In the granitoid basement, magnetite was partially oxidized to hematite by a pre-impact hydrothermal event, but at lithological contacts with high-temperature impact melt rock, this hematite was locally retransformed back to magnetite. Elsewhere in the granitoid basement, the temperature reached in the hydrothermal system was too low for hematite retransformation. It was also too low to anneal all the lattice defects in the shocked magnetite, which likely occurs above 540 °C. The presence of shocked magnetite in the granitoid basement well explains the magnetic anomaly low due to its unusually low induced magnetization.