If there was ever any doubt the 2011 discovery by a post-doctoral student was indeed the hottest rock on Earth, new findings from a Western-led research team are putting that uncertainty to rest.
Eleven years after researchers from Western unearthed what was then perceived as the hottest rock on Earth, a recent study found four additional zircon grains—a hard mineral commonly known as a substitute for diamonds—that confirmed the previous rock's record-high temperature of 2,370 C.
"The biggest implication is that we are getting a much better idea of how hot these impact melt rocks are, which initially formed when the meteorite struck the surface, and it gives us a much better idea of the history of the melt and how it cooled in this particular crater," Tolometti said.Tolometti also noted that most of the preserved evidence, such as glass samples and impact melt samples, were found close to the crater floor.
"Considering how big the reidite was in our samples, we knew the minimum pressure it probably recorded was about 30 gigapascals. But since there is a lot of reidites still present within some of these grains, we know that it could even be above 40 gigapascals," Tolometti explained.
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