Prof. Ramananda Chakrabarti

Collisions between proto-planetary objects in the solar system have played a critical role in the accretion and evolution of planetary bodies. Impact craters, which are ubiquitous features in the Solar System, provide evidence for such collisions. In this presentation I’ll first talk about terrestrial impact craters and how geochemical and isotopic studies of rocks and minerals from these craters provide insights into processes like melting and volatilization, associated with the impact cratering event. Subsequently, I will provide examples of collision-related volatilization from isotopic studies of meteorites and lunar rocks.