OneWorld Festival 2018 Inauguration: Planet Earth public workshop - The Skye Meteorite
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square
No booking required
Before the workshop, Professor Kevin Ibeh, Pro-Vice Master (International), will give a talk to introduce the first Birkbeck One World Festival. Join us for tea and coffee.
The Skye meteorite impact is the youngest recorded meteorite strike in the UK. The impact occurred between 60-62 million years ago and drove the volcanic evolution of the Isle of Skye. It also had a profound effect on the volcanic evolution of surrounding areas of Mull, Morvern and possibly Northern Ireland.
In conducting PhD field work a layer was discovered under the oldest recorded basalts on Skye. Within this layer a mineral called vanadium rich Osbornite (TiVN) was found. This mineral has never been found on Earth before but it was collected from the wake of the Wild II comet by NASAs Stardust Mission in 2005. Its existence on Earth gives compelling evidence for meteorite impact. A second meteorite ejecta deposit site was then discovered 7 km away. The rock at this site has a very similar mineralogy to that at site 1 and critically contains TiVN.
At both sites we found the mineral reidite which is the extreme high pressure form of zircon. Reidite is only ever found in nature associated with meteorite impact events. So at both sites we have minute fragments of the meteorite encased in rock, that has been shocked by the meteorite itself. Such an association of impact and impacted is extremely rare, and has only been identified once before from the Chixilub impact in Mexico.
In the talk we will explain how we came to find evidence for this meteorite strike, and explain the very strange mineralogy we see. In the broader sense through this work we have been able to conduct a fund raising outreach lecture for the benefit of the Skye Mountain Rescue Team, and the local community of Portree. Our talk raised over £800 and we hope to deliver a follow up lecture in March 2019 for the benefit of the mountain rescue. We also aim to alert the community to the fact these fragile scientific sites need protection so that future generations may view them. Already one site already is suffering from damage due to the commercial activities of meteorite sellers. Inevitably this is probably the due to the attention the discovery on Skye has raised.
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Contact name:
OneWorld Week Administrator