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Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Laboratory Drop Towers for the Experimental Simulation of Dust-aggregate Collisions in the Early Solar System
Published on: June 5, 2014
Sediment-dispersed extraterrestrial chromite traces a major asteroid disruption event
Birger Schmitz1, Therese Häggström, Mario Tassinari
1Department of Earth Science, Rice University, Post Office Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251, USA. birger@gvc.gu.se
Abstract:
Abundant extraterrestrial chromite grains from decomposed meteorites occur in middle Ordovician (480 million years ago) marine limestone over an area of approximately 250,000 square kilometers in southern Sweden. The chromite anomaly gives support for an increase of two orders of magnitude in the influx of meteorites to Earth during the mid-Ordovician, as previously indicated by fossil meteorites. Extraterrestrial chromite grains in mid-Ordovician limestone can be used to constrain in detail the temporal variations in flux of extraterrestrial matter after one of the largest asteroid disruption events in the asteroid belt in late solar-system history.
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