Shattercones in shale.
Up thrust wall. Hatchet Creek bridge, highway 280, Coosa County, Alabama. Up thrusting such as this is found around core along highway 231 north of Rockford, Wegulfka and along Rebecca Mountain where sand is tightly packed between huge sheets of quartzite. Always faces center of impact area.
One of many varieties of breccias found in embankment along highway 280 at Hatchet Creek, Coosa County, Alabama.
Excavated from old gold mines along Hatchet Creek, these rocks have every appearance of impactclasts, including melted rock fragments, sand, limestone, quartz and pieces of a very slightly tinted green glass along with various types of micas. Highway 231, Coosa County, Alabama.
Firm, white powder in quartz found at several locations hints a coesite but has not been tested. These specimens came from along highway 231, Coosa County, Alabama. Gold in iron sulfide, silver, molten Fe in vein, hematite with glass, green turquoise and some unusual reddest orange rectangular crystals (mostly burned away) surround a granite dike.
Hematite with black carbon and glass, covered with baked red clay.
Unusual large siliceous rock, one end badly burned, the other broken clean, still leaches sulfer. Sulfides of this kind are rare in this area. Origin unknown.
One of several different colors of very hard baked clay. Some pieces actually developed large cracks like dried mud on lake beds.
Clastic rock forms such as this breccia usually contain some amount of Fe, sand, quartz, and red clay.
Heavily infiltrated quartz breccia with fragments of white quartz.
One of the most amazing breccias amid the many, this piece is characterized with a matrix of brown hematite but a closer look reveals the inside to contain only clear silica while clearly terrestrail quartz stones are imbedded along the edges. While fractured, some melting occured inside.
Vents of red clay such as this one are commonplace in astroblemes, both here and in other places such as the Azurite Impact structure in Spain. Best viewed along highway 231 north of Vincent and near Talladega.
Anti-cline and syncline found in eastern edge of mountains. Highway 280 near Chelsea, Alabama.
Although large ejecta debris rocks form a blanket in any direction from the impact site, some are far more interesting than others. Along Highway 22 West of Rockford, Alabama these huge stones can be found, an igneous rock called a granitoid. An intrusive rock, it and other granite type rocks are instrumental in orogenic events.
Introduction/Main | The Sylacauga Astrobleme | Photographs | Conclusion |
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