EARLY POST-IMPACT SEDIMENTATION AROUND THE CENTRAL HIGH OF THE MJøLNIR IMPACT CRATER (BARENTS SEA, LATE JURASSIC)

Abstract

The Mjølnir bolide created the 40-km diameter Mjølnir crater, when it impacted the black, mostly anoxic clays of the Hekkingen Formation in the paleo-Barents Sea about 142±2.6 million years ago. The normally calm, 300–500 m deep epicontinental depositional environment was suddenly disrupted by the dramatic effect of the impact, resulting in a brief period of extreme sediment reworking and redeposition. The hypoxic to anoxic depositional conditions characteristic of the Hekkingen Formation returned to the impact site soon after the collapse, when the major modification phases of the Mjølnir crater were completed.We have studied a shallow core (121 m long) retrieved from the flanks of the central high in the Mjølnir crater. The core shows a complex depositional succession of the Ragnarok Formation, which is related to both the uplift and the subsequent collapse and drowning of the central high. The basal part of the core consists of chaotically organised, large folded slabs of pre-impact substrate, which we infer to be related to the rapid steepening of the slope of the central high during its rising shortly after the impact. The slump deposits are overlain by a diamict, which is interpreted to originate from debris flows that originate by liquefaction and subsequent remoulding and remobilisation of sediment from the collapsing central high. The diamict is in turn covered by a brecciated, graded mudstone that records the action of impact-related tsunami and the subsequent submergence of the impact crater. A sequence of mainly debris flow and turbidite deposits separates the impact-related deposit from the overlying shelf sediments of the Hekkingen Formation and forms the last post-impact sedimentary recorder of the presence of a central high in the crater.