Scottish Meteorite Impact deposit
Collection:
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Fact sheet

Scottish Meteorite Impact deposit

This sample is a lapilli bearing bed from the Stoer group of the Torridonian sandstone of Scotland, one of two localities in the UK identified as evidence for meteorite impacts in the distant past, the other impact deposit, near Bristol in England is Triassic in age. 

The rock was long identified as a volcanic deposit but has recently been re-interpreted by scientists at Oxford Univeristy and is now recognised as an ancient ejecta deposit. The site of the actual crater remains unknown and its identification has been complicated by the Caledonian orogeny and Moine Thrust zone in which higher grade metamorphic rocks were thrust westwards over the hinterland.

Map
58.198624, -5.328712
Description:
Stac Fada, Gruinard Bay, Scotland
Precision:
Moderate
About this collection

This Collection consists of meteorites that have fallen in Great Britain and Ireland and which are now preserved in museum collections. We have also included samples of the two known meteorite impact deposits in the UK.

The Natural History Museum in London offers more information about meteorites and meteorite categories; there is more information about its meteorite collections here.

Sample details

Type
sedimentary
Category
meteorite impact deposit
Rock-forming mineral
quartz
feldspar
Category guide  
Category Guide
Title
Refers to any word or phrase that appears in the individual rock names. Names are generally descriptive; they allow users to search for broad terms like ‘granite’ as well as more specific names such as ‘breccia’. However, the adjacent descriptions of the specimens captures a wider range of general words and phrases and is a more powerful search tool.
Description
Refers to any word or phrase that appears anywhere in the descriptions of the specimens
Accessory minerals
Minerals that occur in very low abundance in a rock. They are usually not visible with the naked eye and contribute perhapssver, they often dominate the rare elements such as platinum group metals.
Rock-forming minerals
Minerals that make up the bulk of all rock samples and are also the ones used in rock classi?cation.
Timescale
Selecting one or more period, for example 'Jurassic'.
Theme
A term used to group together related samples that are not already gathered into a single Collection. For instance, there is a ‘SW England granites’ theme that includes such rock types as granite, hydrothermal breccia, skarn and vein samples.
Category
A general term used to label a rock sample. It is a useful way of grouping similar samples throughout a collection. Category names are often, but not exclusively, common rock names (e.g. granite, basalt, dolerite, gabbro, greisen, skarn, gneiss, amphibolite, limestone, sandstone).
Owner
The owner of the sample that appears in the collection. For example, NASA owns all the samples that appear in the Moon Rocks collection
We would like to thank the following for the use of this sample: