Origin and transformation of organic carbon from the Hiawatha meteorite crater, North-West Greenland: a preliminary study

• Published in: Energy Procedia
• Main Authors: Garde, Adam A., Eisen, Olaf, Fahnestock, Mark A., Funder, Svend, Guvad, Carsten, Haack, Henning, Kjær, Kurt H., Larsen, Nicolaj K., MacGregor, Joseph A., McDonald, Iain, Møller, Jette Dahl, Søndergaard, Anne Sofie, Waight, Tod E., Weikusat, Christian
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: Arctic; Greenland; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/47677/; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.616f4fdc-493b-4c89-9108-7544236c6afa

Glaciofluvial sand draining the newly discovered Hiawatha impact crater under the Greenland Ice Sheet in North-West Greenland contains shocked quartz, glasses derived from direct mineral melts, carbon-bearing glasses, particles of charcoal and transformed ('glassy') charcoal, as well as low-reflectance carbonaceous grains with tiny carbon spherules and mineral fragments. Some of these grains are interpreted as ejecta and perhaps plume material containing sublimated and re-deposited carbon. The only plausible carbon source of this carbon is subfossil Arctic vegetation including small conifer and angiosperm trees older than 50 ka and likely around 2.3 Ma in age, supporting a very young age of the crater.