Early Archean spherule beds: Chromium isotopes confirm origin through multiple impacts of projectiles of carbonaceous chondrite type

Three Early Archean spherule beds from Barberton, South Africa, have anomalous Cr isotope compositions in addition to large Ir anomalies, confirming the presence of meteoritic material with a composition similar to that in carbonaceous chondrites. The extra-terrestrial components in beds S2, S3, and S4 are estimated to be ∼1%, 50%-60%, and 15%-30%, respectively. These beds are probably the distal, and possibly global, ejecta from major large-body impacts. These impacts were probably much larger than the Cretaceous-Tertiary event, and all occurred over an interval of ∼20 m.y., implying an impactor flux at 3.2 Ga that was more than an order of magnitude greater than the present flux.