A rare mineral that is produced when a particularly high-pressure shock wave meteorite impact passes through rock containing quartz. It is a high-density form of silica produced at a pressure of 130 000 bar. Stishovite-bearing fragments in the vicinity of large craters are taken as evidence that the crater is of meteoritic origin. It is named after the Russian mineralogist Sergei Mikhailovich Stishov (1937– ) who helped synthesize it in 1962. See also coesite.