High-impact reservoirs

The processes that accompany asteroid impact and the roles they play in creating or destroying petroleum source rocks, reservoirs and traps are discussed. Most asteroids orbit the Sun in the asteroid belt, which lies between Mars and Jupiter but some come closer to the Earth. Excavation produces a bowl-shaped transient crater. Craters larger than a few kilometers in diameter usually have complex morphologies characterized by an uplift central area. The central high consists of shocked target rock that has been structurally uplifted by rebound. The bottom of the crater filled with melt brecias, mixtures of granite, carbonate, and dolomite in a spherulitic matrix. The impact that has drawn the most attention is the collision of the Chicxulub impactor with what is now the Mexican Yucatán Peninsula. A direct hit by an asteroid can also cause the demise of an hydrocarbon accumulation.