From June 1st to 4th, Philippe Claeys led a field trip to the Ries crater Noerdlingen (Bayern, Germany) for master students at the IPGP, together with AMGC members: Professor Steven Goderis, and part of his Flux team, Samuel Boschi, Max Thiemens, Jolanta Eschrig, Gabriele Pinto, Tryvge Prestgard, as well as post-doctoral researchers Inigo Muller and Cem Berk Senel and PhD student Xianye Zhao. Professors Frederic Moynier, Julien Sibert and former IPGP director Marc Chaussidon led the IPGP students.
The group looked at different types of outcrops including the emblematic suevite, in the quarries where it was initially defined such as Otting outside the crater rim, Aumuehle with colorful Bunte Breccia on top (see group photo) as well as Altenburg, which provided the stones for many Noerdlingen buildings, including the church. The Ries impact melt breccia with vesicular melt and highly shocked basement clasts was examined in Polsingen. The basement crystalline breccia formed by granite and gneiss with Bunte Breccia on top, in Unterwilfiengen, was rather impressive. The group spent also some time examining the overturned allochtonous, thick-bedded fractured limestone of the Late Oxfordian and Early Kimmeridgian block pushed away on the slope of crater rim in Gosheim, right on the crater rim.
One the last evening, Philippe gave an overview talk on impact cratering process on terrestrial planets, and the trip ended with a great dinner.