The anthropocene victor gostin
Victor A. Gostin (born 1940) is an Australian geologist who discovered in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia a deposit of volcanic material that was ejected from the Lake Acraman 300 km away due to the impact of a meteorite. An asteroid has been named in his honor, Asteroid 3640 Gostin 1985 TR3, on account of this discovery. He is an associate professor at the University of Adelaide, Department of Earth Sciences, School of Physical Sciences.
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His discovery was linked to a previous discovery by George Williams, also of the University of Adelaide, that a crater in Lake Acraman was due to the impact of a bolide, or a large meteor. After Gostin learned about this, he, Williams, Peter Haines and other colleagues of the University of Adelaide studied the materials in both places and found that they were similar in lithology and fracturing, showing that the ejecta in Flinders Range came from the Lake Acraman. This collaborative study was announced by them on July 9, 1985 during the Adelaide Geosyncline Informal Research Symposium in the Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Adelaide. Gostin remarked that his discovery "was the first known occurrence of far-flung ejected blocks of impact origin that have been preserved on earth."
Asteroid 3640 Gostin, which was named in honor of Gostin, was discovered by C. S. and E. M. Shoemaker at Mt. Palomar Observatory. The citation reads as follows:
Named in honour of Victor A. Gostin, geologist on the faculty of the University of Adelaide, South Australia. A specialist in sedimentology and stratigraphy, Gostin discovered in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia a deposit of shocked debris ejected from the Lake Acraman impact structure about 300 km to the west. His careful studies of this ancient deposit have provided the first detailed picture of the distant ejecta from a known large terrestrial impact crater.
In 2011, Gostin was also awarded the Bruce Webb Medal of the Geological Society of Australia for "his major contributions to Earth Sciences education and various aspects of geology, including environmental geology, marine geology, planetology and sedimentology over the last forty years."
Gostin is an active member of the Theosophical Society in Australia and edits the e-newsletter Theosophy and Science.