{"id":231759,"date":"2026-02-21T01:14:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T07:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/impact-formed-glass-provides-evidence-of-cosmic-collision-in-brazil-about-6-million-years-ago"},"modified":"2026-02-21T01:14:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T07:14:45","slug":"impact-formed-glass-provides-evidence-of-cosmic-collision-in-brazil-about-6-million-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/impact-formed-glass-provides-evidence-of-cosmic-collision-in-brazil-about-6-million-years-ago","title":{"rendered":"Impact-formed glass provides evidence of cosmic collision in Brazil about 6 million years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/impact-formed-glass-provides-evidence-of-cosmic-collision-in-brazil-about-6-million-years-ago2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For the first time in Brazil, researchers have identified a field of tektites. These are natural glasses formed by the high-energy impact of extraterrestrial bodies against Earth\u2019s surface. These structures, named geraisites in honor of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, where they were first discovered, constitute a new strewn field. This expands the incomplete record of impacts in South America.<\/p>\n<p>The discovery was described in an article <b><a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.geoscienceworld.org\/gsa\/geology\/article-abstract\/doi\/10.1130\/G53805.1\/721403\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a><\/b> in the journal <i>Geology<\/i> by a team led by \u00c1lvaro Penteado Cr\u00f3sta, a geologist and senior professor at the Institute of Geosciences at the State University of Campinas (IG-UNICAMP). Cr\u00f3sta collaborated with researchers from Brazil, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Until now, only five large tektite fields had been recognized on the planet: in Australasia, Central Europe, the Ivory Coast, North America, and Belize. The Brazilian field now joins this select group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time in Brazil, researchers have identified a field of tektites. These are natural glasses formed by the high-energy impact of extraterrestrial bodies against Earth\u2019s surface. These structures, named geraisites in honor of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, where they were first discovered, constitute a new strewn field. This expands the incomplete [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1497],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}