Abstract
By 1992 only about half a dozen fossil meteorites had been found in the Earth’s entire geological record. This is a very low number considering the vast surface of exposed sedimentary rock visually examined during geological field work and industrial quarrying in the 20th century. In the first systematic fossil meteorite search, pursued 1992–2000 in the active Thorsberg quarry in Lower Ordovician marine limestone in southern Sweden, 35 additional fossil meteorites have been found. These meteorites, 1-20 cm in cross section, accumulated over ∼ 1.75 Myr, over a seafloor area of ∼5500 m2, making this one of the most meteorite-dense areas known in the world. Studies of the distribution of fossil meteorites and their relict minerals in geological strata can provide new knowledge about variations in meteorite influx and major asteroid breakup events in the asteroid belt throughout solar system history.
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Schmitz, B., Tassinari, M. (2001). Fossil Meteorites. In: Peucker-Ehrenbrink, B., Schmitz, B. (eds) Accretion of Extraterrestrial Matter Throughout Earth’s History. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8694-8_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8694-8_17
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