Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Large Meteorite Impacts and Planetary Evolution held at the Vredefort Dome, South Africa, in Aug. 2008.

In this volume, the geologic and planetary science communities explore impact events and how they affected the evolution of Earth and other planetary bodies. these papers are the outcome of a conference held every five years.

"This volume contains a sizable suite of contributions dealing with regional impact records (Australia, Sweden), impact craters and impactites, early Archean impacts and geophysical characteristics of impact structures, shock metamorphic investigations, post-impact hydrothermalism, and structural geology and morphometry of impact structures - on Earth and Mars"--

Comprises 28 papers which grew out of the International Conference on Large Meteorite Impacts and Planetary Evolution, August/September, 1992 in Sudbury, Ontario. The interdisciplinary papers, encompassing diverse studies from trace element geochemistry to planetary exploration, are arranged into f

"In 2005 and 2006, an international deep drilling project, conceived and organized under the auspices of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program and the U.S. Geological Survey, continuously cored three boreholes to a total depth of 1.766 km near the center of the Chesapeake Bay impact structure in Northampton County, Virginia. This volume presents the initial results of geologic, petrographic, geochemical, paleontologic, geophysical, hydrologic, and microbiologic analyses of the Eyreville cores, which constitute a step forward in our understanding of the Chesapeake Bay impact structure and marine impact structures in general. The editors have organized this extensive volume into the following sections: geologic columns; borehole geophysical studies; regional geophysical studies; crystalline rocks, impactites, and impact models; sedimentary breccias; post-impact sediments; hydrologic and geothermal studies; and microbiologic studies. The multidisciplinary approach to the study of this impact structure should provide a valuable example for future scientific drilling investigations."--Publisher's description.

"The third volume of the series “Large Meteorite Impacts” provides an updated and comprehensive overview of modern impact crater research. In 26 chapters, more than 90 authors from Europe, the United States, Russia, Canada, and South Africa give a balanced, firsthand account of the multidisciplinary field of cratering science, with reports on field studies, geophysical analyses, and experimental and numerical simulations. Nine chapters focus on structure, geophysics, and cratering motions of terrestrial craters. Recent advances in impact ejecta studies and shock metamorphism are assembled, each with seven chapters, and three chapters extend the scope from a terrestrial to a planetary perspective."--pub. desc.

This book presents recent and cutting edge advances in our understanding of key aspects of the response of materials under extreme loads that take place during high velocity impact and penetration. The focus of the content is on the numerous challenges associated with characterization and modeling of complex interactions that occur during these highly dynamic events. The following specific topics, among others, are addressed: characterization of material behavior under extreme loadings (estimate of damage, effects related to moisture contents, large pressures, large strain rates, etc.); measurement of microstructural changes associated with damage and mesoscopic scale modeling; macroscopic modeling, using the framework of the theory of viscoplasticity and damage; modeling and simulation of localization, cracking, and dynamic fragmentation of materials; application to penetration mechanics and trajectory instabilities. The book gathers together selected papers based on work presented as invited lectures at the 2nd US-France symposium held on 28-30 May 2008 in Rocamadour, France. The conference was organized by Eric Buzaud (DGA, Centre d'Études de Gramat) under the auspices of the International Center for Applied Computational Mechanics (ICACM).