Türkiye Jeoloji Bülteni

Findings of an Asteroid Impact crater within the Late Neogene Deposits in Central Anatolia, Turkey

Abstract: It is presented here some unusual brecciated rock clasts within the clastic deposits of the Late Mioceneand Pliocene at the Mucur (Kırşehir) area of central Anatolia, Turkey. Petrographycally, these clasts aredescribed as tachylite or impactite. They are dark-coloured metamorphic rock fragments with size of 100to 3-4 cm in diameter, which are abundantly breccaited and to a lesser extend melted-rock fragmentsembedded in thick silica layers. The tachylite clasts are found only at the lower and medial part of the LateNeogene sequence, forming only 1-1.5 % of the total clast components of the host deposits. These specialclasts (tachylite or impactite) represent the destroyed walls of an impact crater created by an asteroid atcentral Anatolia in pre- Late Miocene time. Based on tachylite types and their abundance, the inferredimpact crater was a circular depression with minimum 200 m depth and 2 km in diameter. The possiblepalaeogeographic and palaeoecological results of such a big impact to the earth have been searched.