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origin of which is beyond serious doubt. It is associated with
impactites (called zhamanshinites) which contain coesite, stishovite,
maskelynite and melted foamed silica. Yu. F. Pogrebyak found that the
elements Ni, Co. and Cr occur in irghizites at levels so much above the
levels in the country rock that there can be little doubt that these
elements must have come from the projectile that made the crater. It
follows that the projectile could not have been an iron meteorite nor a
stony-iron. We are forced to conclude that the projectile at Zhamanshin
probably did not belong to any of the types of objects classed as
meteorites in the strict sense. Could it have been a comet? It is
concluded that the geochemical data are consistent with the hypothesis
of a giant tektite as the projectile at Zhamanshin, and are not
consistent with any kind of non-glassy meteorite. In this case both the
irghizites and the zhamanshinite spray might have been produced at the
contact between the projectile and the ground.
Email Address: meteorites@att.net