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Updated: Mar 13, 2026

Laboratory Drop Towers for the Experimental Simulation of Dust-aggregate Collisions in the Early Solar System
Published on: June 5, 2014
Impact ejecta at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary
Morgan F Schaller1, Megan K Fung2, James D Wright3
1Earth and Environmental Sciences, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, NY 12180, USA. schall@rpi.edu.
Abstract:
Extraterrestrial impacts have left a substantial imprint on the climate and evolutionary history of Earth. A rapid carbon cycle perturbation and global warming event about 56 million years ago at the Paleocene-Eocene (P-E) boundary (the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum) was accompanied by rapid expansions of mammals and terrestrial plants and extinctions of deep-sea benthic organisms. Here, we report the discovery of silicate glass spherules in a discrete stratigraphic layer from three marine P-E boundary sections on the Atlantic margin. Distinct characteristics identify the spherules as microtektites and microkrystites, indicating that an extraterrestrial impact occurred during the carbon isotope excursion at the P-E boundary.
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