GLASS DIVERSITY AT THE WANAPITEI IMPACT SITE IN ONTARIO

Glass Diversity at the Wanapitei Impact Site in Ontario

Wanapitei Lake in Ontario is an Eocene impact site from a chondrite of the LL type. The impact produced a complex crater that today holds the deepest lake in Ontario. Soon after its discovery, researchers speculated that it was the source crater for the North American tektite strewn field. In the early 1980’s one of the authors (SM) traveled to the crater to investigate this possible relationship by looking for glass samples. Four types were found. The first was a loose fladen - an aerodynamically flight shaped bomb of dense glassy material; the second was a vesicular pebble of glass showing layered structure; the third, several partly devitrified boulders of clast rich glass with rare vesicles; and lastly, an enclave of small translucent brown fresh glass beads in a boulder of oxidized breccia.

Although the analysis of the beads (Ngo et al. 1985) proved the crater had no connection to the N. A. tektites, the glass material recovered is unusual and some of it has never been illustrated. Here we report on the glass and provide photos of hand samples to facilitate discovery of more types by future workers.