Impact-diagnostic criteria for use in confirming a meteorite impact origin of terrestrial geological structures: Recommendations by the Impact Cratering Committee of the Meteoritical SocietyOPEN ACCESS 

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A. J. Cavosie, S. Alwmark, D. Baratoux, G. Consolmagno, L. Ferrière, S. Goderis, N. Hauser, T. Kenkmann, C. Koeberl, G. R. Osinski, A. E. Pickersgill, M. Schönbächler

MAPS, Version of Record online: 24 May 2026

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“The framework of the Impact Cratering Committee (ICC) of the Meteoritical Society was approved in 2020, with the first committee members appointed in 2023. The ICC has a mandate to (1) approve, maintain, and update a database of confirmed terrestrial meteorite impact structures, (2) define and regularly update the criteria used for identification of impact structures and their related deposits, and (3) evaluate new candidate sites for inclusion in the ICC database. Prior to certifying a list of confirmed impact structures, the ICC has compiled a list of all impact-diagnostic criteria that are currently considered as representing irrefutable or “gold standard” evidence that can be used independently to confirm whether or not a terrestrial geological structure has an impact origin. The ICC currently recognizes three categories of “gold standard” impact-diagnostic evidence: (1) Shock metamorphic features within rocks or minerals that on Earth have only been reported to occur in impactites, and whose formation conditions (high P–T) have been demonstrated through experiments to only form at conditions created during hypervelocity impacts; (2) meteorites that are spatially and chronologically associated with a site suspected of being an impact structure; and (3) geochemical elemental or isotopic detection of an extraterrestrial signature in melt rocks or breccias associated with a site suspected of being an impact structure. Other mineral and rock features have been reported from impact structures that are important to document, but they do not represent irrefutable or unambiguous evidence of impact. For this reason, we present two lists: The first list describes each impact-diagnostic criterion and provides recommendations for reporting protocols. The second list describes other features commonly reported from impact settings and the rationale for why these are not currently considered by the ICC to represent impact-diagnostic evidence. The ICC will provide a list of confirmed terrestrial impact structures in a subsequent publication and online. Updates to the list based on new discoveries and/or new understanding of impact-diagnostic criteria will be published online by the ICC.”

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