A 650 km2 Miocene strewnfield of splash-form impact glasses in the Atacama Desert, Chile

Glassy ejecta are associated to a limited number of impact craters, and yet hold key information about hypervelocity processes. Here we report on the discovery ∼650 km2 glass strewnfield in Central Depression Atacama Desert. These cm-sized splash-form objects, that refer as atacamaites, essentially composed dacitic formed by high-temperature melting local magmatic rocks, with addition variable iron meteorite contamination, 5 wt.% average. The most likely nature for impactor is IIAB group. fission-track plateau method, two samples, yielded mean formation age 7.83±0.26 Ma. No crater has been discovered so far, suggesting it may be relatively small, km-sized crater. glassy nature, aerodynamic shapes, elevated temperature, low water content reminiscent tektites. However, their small size, heterogeneity, oxidation state, significant contamination impactor, more proximal provenance distinguish them from Atacamaites have no equivalent among few known terrestrial ejected glasses, increase intriguing diversity such products propose name “tektoids”.