The Potential for Survival of Organic Matter in Fluid Inclusions at Impact Sites -- Geomicrobiology of Impact-Altered Rocks -- Bacterial Spores Survive Simulated Meteorite Impact -- Impact-Generated Hydrothermal System — Constraints from the Large Paleoproterozoic Sudbury Crater, Canada -- Comparison of Bosumtwi Impact Crater (Ghana) and Crater Lake Volcanic Caldera (Oregon, USA): Implications for Biotic Recovery after Catastrophic Events -- Paleobiologic Effects of the Late Cretaceous Wetumpka Marine Impact, a 7.6-km-Diameter Impact Structure, Gulf Coastal Plain, USA -- The Sweet Aftermath: Environmental Changes and Biotic Restoration Following the Marine Mjølnir Impact (Volgian-Ryazanian Boundary, Barents Shelf) -- Guembelitria irregularis Bloom at the K-T Boundary: Morphological Abnormalities Induced by Impact-related Extreme Environmental Stress? -- Unravelling the Cretaceous-Paleogene (KT) Turnover, Evidence from Flora, Fauna and Geology -- Impacts and Wildfires - An Analysis of the K-T Event -- Continental Vertebrate Extinctions at the Triassic-Jurassic and Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundaries: a Comparison -- Geochemical Search for Impact Signatures in Possible Impact-generated Units Associated with the Jurassic-Cretaceous Boundary in southern England and northern France -- New Evidence for Impact from the Suvasvesi South Structure, Central East Finland -- Kärdla Impact (Hiiumaa Island, Estonia) — Ejecta Blanket and Environmental Disturbances -- Sediments and Impact Rocks Filling the Boltysh Impact Crater -- Stones in the Sky: From the Main Belt to Earth-Crossing Orbits.

The diversity of papers presented in this volume attest to the fact that impact cratering is very much a biological process. This volume is the tenth in a series of books resulting from the activities of the scientific programme, "Response of the Earth System to Impact Processes" (IMPACT), by the European Science Foundation. The papers were presented at an international meeting at King's College, Cambridge in 2003. These papers investigate the effects of asteroid and comet impacts on a diversity of biological and evolutionary processes including the survival of organics and microbial ecosystems to the extinction of organisms.