Direct quartz-coesite transformation in shocked porous sandstone from Kamil Crater (Egypt)

Coesite, a high-pressure silica polymorph (pressure 3–10 GPa, temperature <3000 K), is a diagnostic feature of shock metamorphism associated with impact cratering on quartz-bearing target rocks. It is preserved as a metastable phase in sedimentary target rocks that experienced peak pressures in excess of ~10 GPa, where it typically occurs as intergranular polycrystalline aggregates of microcrystals embedded in silica glass known as “symplectic regions.” The presence of coesite in the symplectic regions of rocks experiencing shock conditions beyond the limits of the coesite stability field is a controversial issue. Through a combined scanning and transmission electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy study of shocked quartzarenites from the 45-m-diameter Kamil Crater (southwest Egypt), we show that coesite in symplectic regions forms through direct subsolidus transformation from quartz, in contrast with the prevailing hypothesis for crystalline targets. The quartz-to-coesite transformation takes place during localized shock-wave reverberation at the beginning of the pore collapse process. Complete pore collapse generates the high temperature regimes responsible for the subsequent production of the embedding silica melts, in part at the expense of the previously formed coesite. This work documents the role of pore collapse in producing localized pressure-temperature-time gradients in shocked porous targets, as predicted by numerical models in the literature.