Granular zircon from Vredefort granophyre (South Africa) confirms the deep injection model for impact melt in large impact structures

Funding

Kovaleva dedicates this work to her deceased friend and colleague, Prof. M. Tredoux, who worked in Vrede-fort throughout her career and who collected this unique sample. The research is supported by National Research Foundation of South Africa grants 98443, 111386, and 106511 to Kovaleva, and by Russian Science Foundation project 16-17-10283 funds (agreement of 24 May 2016) to S.L. Votyakov, supervisor of Zamyatin. We are grateful to C. van Rensburg and A.J. van Coller for access to an outcrop, and to M. Huber and L. Van Der Westhuizen for English editing. Comments of the editor D. Brown and reviewers A. Cavosie, G. Kenny, and D. Moser improved the paper greatly.