Mineral shock signatures in rocks from Dhala (Mohar) impact structure, Shivpuri district, Madhya Pradesh, India

A concrete study combining optical microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffractometry, was carried out on subsurface samples of basement granite and melt breccia from Mohar (Dhala) impact structure, Shivpuri district, Madhya Pradesh, India. Optical microscopy reveals aberrations in the optical properties of quartz and feldspar in the form of planar deformation feature-like structures, lowered birefringence and mosaics in quartz, toasting, planar fractures and ladder texture in alkali feldspar and near-isotropism in bytownite. It also brings to light incidence of parisite, a radioactive rare mineral in shocked granite. Raman spectral pattern, peak positions, peak widths and multiplicity of peak groups of all minerals, suggest subtle structural/crystallographic deviations. XRD data further reveals minute deviations of unit cell parameters of quartz, alkali feldspar and plagioclase, with respect to standard \({\upalpha }\)-quartz, high- and low albite and microcline. Reduced cell volumes in these minerals indicate compression due to pressure. The \(\hbox {c}_{0}/\hbox {a}_{0}\) values indicate an inter-tetrahedral angle roughly between \(120^{\mathrm{o}}\) and \(144^{\mathrm{o}}\), further pointing to a possible pressure maxima of around 12 GPa. The observed unit cell aberration of minerals may indicate an intermediate stage between crystalline and amorphous stages, thereby, signifying possible overprinting of decompression signatures over shock compression effects, from a shock recovery process.