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Iridium Clay

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HAN677011

Iridium Clay

Classic Locality

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Description
Locality: 
Gola del Bottaccione, Gubbio, Perugia Province, Umbria, Italy
Class: 
Massive/Crystalline
Size Range: 
Thumbnail (1-3cm)
Size: 
2 × 1.2 × 1.2 cm
Weight: 
2.85gr
Description

Iridium rich clay from the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary near Gubbio in Italy

 Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary 
Glass Bottle Size : 20 x 12 mm              Weight : 2.85 grams

AS IMCA member 8039 I gaurantee the authenticity of the specimen, a sample of what I collected has been sent to the university in Aachen to determine the exact  percentage on iridium in the sedimentary red clay 

In 1980, a team of researchers led by Nobel prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez, his son, geologist Walter Alvarez, and chemists Frank Asaro and Helen Vaughn Michel discovered that sedimentary layers found all over the world at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary(K–Pg boundary; formerly called Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) boundary) contain a concentration of iridium hundreds of times greater than normal. Iridium is extremely rare in the Earth's crust because it is very dense and has the affinity for iron that characterizes the siderophile elements (see Goldschmidt classification), and therefore most of it sank into the Earth's core while the earth was still molten. The Alvarez team suggested that an asteroid struck the earth at the time of the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary.

In a 1953 publication, geologists Allan O. Kelly and Frank Dachille analyzed geological evidence from around the earth and concluded that one or more giant asteroids impacted the earth, causing an angular shift in the earth's axis, global floods, fire, atmospheric occlusion and causing extinction of the dinosaurs. There were other earlier speculations on the possibility of an impact event, but no evidence had been uncovered at that time

Mineral Data
What's on the rock

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