Type: Impactite

Origin: West Coast, Tasmania, Australia

Description: This is an amazing 95.1 gram specimen of Zhamanshinite impact rock. 

The Zhamanshin crater was created about a million years ago in Kazakhstan, the meteorite crater  lies about 100 kilometres northeast of the small sea and it is known to be one of the most recent and violent impacts on the planet.

The  Zhamanshin crater is 14 kilometres in diameter and reaches a depth of 300 m. Throughout the area, the earth has been stirred over several strata and today there are fossilized corals and shells on the surface of the ground as well as many tektites and different types of impact melts including the less dense frothy rocks as well as  darker dense impact glass, as  the result of a transformation of the rock due to the heat released by the impact.

The energy released was equivalent to several dozen Hiroshima bombs. It had the same effect as what is called a "nuclear winter" and the impact caused fires and smoke emissions that caused all animal and plant species to disappear within a radius of several hundred kilometres.